The Gods of Nothing at All
by SilvorMoon
Summary: As the god of duty and devotion, it's Arima's job to find the proper path for all those who can't find their purpose in life. But long ago, two gods were created with no purpose at all, and they've made up their mind to choose their own destiny, no matter who might suffer because of it.
1. The Broken Seal

It was not a good neighborhood. It wasn't the worst neighborhood, either - you weren't likely to be murdered or robbed during daylight hours, and some of the shops were still doing legitimate business. There was a pub, for example, that sold watery beer to tired laborers. A greengrocer had set up a stall outside where browning cabbages and woody carrots languished in the sun amid a small crowd of flies. The street was only hard-packed dirt, ribbed with ruts. A few puddles from last week's rain still glistened here and there. The people had a grubby, threadbare appearance.

Except one. A stranger moved slowly down the street, ambling along as if he had no fear of pickpockets or other ne'er-do-wells. He should have been concerned - no one in that neighborhood had ever seen clothing like his, much less worn it. From his sandals, which were of butter-soft leather with silver buckles and studs, to his earrings, which were polished malachite drops, he was clearly a man of some importance. He wore robes of silky, silvery gray, beautifully embroidered with a pattern of willow branches and leaves. His feet left no prints on the muddy ground, and when he stepped in a puddle, the surface of the water didn't even ripple.

That wasn't the strangest thing about him, though. The strange thing was the way his presence seemed to affect everyone around him. No one paid attention to him or even looked at him, but wherever he went, people seemed to suddenly remember themselves. A youth chatting to his friends abruptly excused himself and went back to his job. A woman going over her accounts was seized by a realization that her assistant deserved a raise. A man who had been flirting with a flower seller broke off his conversation and went home to his wife.

Arima paid little attention to all this. It was just the sort of thing that happened to him these days. He had been the god of duty and devotion for nearly two years now, and he was beginning to feel that he was getting the hang of his job. These days, nudging people into doing what they were supposed to be doing was something he could manage with only a thought. People like these were only the low-hanging fruit, to be dealt with in passing on the way to his primary mission. He had another, more challenging target in mind.

A few meters ahead of him, ambling along the street with no apparent destination, was a boy of about sixteen, whom Arima knew from earlier research to be named Ryobe. He was unemployed at the moment, with a reputation for getting himself into trouble. He occasionally ran errands and did odd jobs, but most of his time was spent lounging about with his friends, gambling, and occasionally picking pockets. Just now, he was drifting towards one of the better parts of town, perhaps hoping to find either work or a less ethical source of quick cash.

He hadn't gone far, though, before he encountered a moderately well-dressed man with the look of a merchant and the expression of a man with too much to do and not enough time to do it.

"You there, boy!" he shouted.

Ryobe paused and looked at him curiously. "Sir?"

"Are you busy? How would you like to earn a little money?"

Ryobe did. He nodded eagerly.

"Good," said the merchant. He thrust a folded sheet of paper at the boy. "Take this to the temple of Vitrine. Do you know it? On Forgefire Street?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Deliver it to the chief priest. He'll know it's from me and he'll give you a coin or two for your efforts."

Ryobe agreed to the task, which was, after all, easy money. He tucked the message into his belt and began loping with more energy in the direction of Forgefire Street. Arima strolled after him, unnoticed.

Forgefire Street was a marked step up from the road where the two of them had started. It was still less than opulent, but it had the air of a place where important work was going on. There were indeed forges and fires there, and a full regiment of potters and blacksmiths and glassblowers to attend to them. The air smelled of smoke and hot metal, and rang with the sound of hammers. Amid these more homely buildings was a loftier site: the Temple of Vitrine, goddess of glass and glassworkers. Whereas the businesses were all clearly designed with practicality rather than beauty in mind, the temple was a glory to behold, a towering spire of white stone that somehow managed to stay clean despite the smoke, set with more windows than seemed structurally possible. In the late morning sun, the whole thing glistened like the world's largest jewel.

Ryobe hesitated outside the structure, apparently having second thoughts. It did not, after all, look like the kind of place where ragged street rats would be welcome. It would be very easy just to disappear back into the streets he'd come from and leave the hassled merchant to find another messenger elsewhere. Arima could hear all these thoughts passing through the boy's head as clearly as if he'd spoken aloud.

 _Oh, no you don't, my lad. I worked too hard to get you this far, and you're not dropping out on me now!_

He'd spent days setting this up - finding a suitable businessman in the area who dealt with the temple, arranging matters so that he'd need to send a message, making certain that Ryobe would be in the right place at the right time to deliver it. Arima was in no mood to start over now. He gave the boy a careful nudge, reminding him that a place this lovely probably had lots of money, and would be generous to a boy who delivered an important message efficiently. The promise of a reward did the trick, and the boy gathered his courage and went inside.

He stopped just at the entrance to the sanctuary. The temple might be beautiful from the outside, but from the inside, it was glorious. Sunlight streamed through the many windows, making them blaze with light. They were all of stained glass, laid out in intricate patterns and full of colors both bright and subtle. Each one was different, and each was a testament to the skill of the master who had made them. The floor was made of polished white marble, uninterrupted by any kind of seating, meant to reflect the colors and patterns to the fullest potential. To a boy raised in a grubby slum, it must have felt as though he had wandered straight into the Heavenly City.

While he was still standing and staring, a young man in the white and gold robes of a priest of Vitrine walked into the room.

"I thought I heard someone come in," he said. "Is there something I can do for you, young man?"

The boy turned to him with wide eyes. "Were these windows made by gods?"

The priest laughed. "Only by their servants. Is this your first time inside the Temple of Vitrine?"

The boy nodded shyly. Of course he'd never been inside this temple before. He had been forced by his mother to go to a few of the local temples for services as often as she could drag him, and he had formed the impression that temples were dull, boring places full of strict people and stricter rules. Something of that must have shown on his face, because the priest laughed again.

"This isn't your everyday sort of temple," he said. "This is a working temple, dedicated to one of the craft gods. We're less concerned with morals and rules than we are in honing our skills. We serve our goddess by doing the best work we can."

"Oh," said the boy softly. He stared a moment longer before seeming to come to himself. He scrambled for the message he was carrying. "Here. I need to give this to the chief priest. Is that you?"

"Oh, no. I'm just a junior priest, but I can take you to the chief. He's in the workshop."

"Workshop?" the boy repeated. "You mean you actually make..." He waved a hand at the windows. "...here?"

"We make all sorts of things here," said the priest, smiling. "Windows and mirrors and glasses and ornaments... Would you like to see?"

"Can I?" the boy asked.

"Of course you can," said the priest. "We welcome everyone who is interested in our craft. If you like, you can even help us with our work."

The boy looked as though he had just been offered the kingdom's greatest honor. The priest set a hand on his shoulder and began leading him deeper into the temple. Arima watched them both for a while, then turned and began walking back out into the street.

"A job well done," he told himself.

The boy might not join the temple right away, but he was hooked now. He would come back after this, start hanging around the workshops, begin helping the initiates and acolytes with their work and running errands for the priests, and sooner or later it would dawn on him that this was the life for him. Left to his own devices, he probably would have grown up to be a professional thief or pickpocket, and more than likely would have ended up in jail or hanging from a gallows. Arima didn't know what would happen to him now - maybe he would become high priest someday, or the greatest and most wealthy craftsman in the city. Maybe he would merely live out his life as a humble glassblower, making things both useful and beautiful for his neighbors. No matter how it turned out, though, one thing was for certain: he would never again feel that he had no purpose in life.

Among his followers and peers alike, he was known as the Friend of All Gods. His work was to guide lost souls like that boy. Whenever he found someone who was drifting aimlessly, he would lead them to something they could devote themselves to - a cause, a person, a religion. Whatever it was, it would always be the thing they were best suited to, and the thing that would make them happiest when they pursued it. He was known for his impartiality - no cause was too small or too challenging for him. In fact, he had become immensely popular among the minor gods, because he had begun leading people to them who might otherwise have become devotees of the more important, well-known gods instead. This was what had earned him his nickname, and even the temple where his religion had been founded was sometimes called The Friend of All Gods Temple. It was based on the site where his childhood home had been, and the garden where he had first met Aurite was preserved there - not as a vegetable garden now, but as a place of quiet meditation. Arima was looking forward to the day when some lost soul would wander there, begging him to find the path they couldn't find on their own, and he could rest his hand on their shoulder and tell them, "You are favored by me above all others. From this day onward, you will be my servant." He hoped ardently that when that day came, whoever he selected would be as happy in their work as he'd been in his.

At the same time, he was finding his new place in the universe something of an adjustment. It wasn't that he was unhappy in his new life. In many ways, he was probably happier than he had ever been before. He was surrounded by dear friends who welcomed him as their equal. After a lifetime of asceticism, he now had the freedom to indulge in any luxury he cared to. For the first time in his life, he had a garden that was entirely his own, his very own private courtyard where he could plant whatever he liked. It was hard to absorb. He had lived all his life by someone else's rules, and now he was being told that the rules no longer applied to him, and he could follow or ignore them as he chose. It was a little overwhelming, and left him wondering if he was really making the right choices. After all, there had been lots of high priests of Aurite before him who could find all the pitfalls and leave instructions on how to deal with them. There had never been a god of duty before, and the only way Arima could know he was doing a good job was to try his best and watch the results.

He was still dwelling on that thought when he became aware of a flash of movement and bright color out of the corner of one eye. He managed to turn around just in time to see a blonde boy flinging himself at Arima's side.

"Hey, hey, I found you!" the boy exclaimed, hugging him as if he'd been searching for Arima for years. In fact, they had seen each other at breakfast only that morning. Arima smiled. After all, this was no mere boy. In truth, it was the little god known as Scarlet, or sometimes simply as Chance. Either way, he was one of the greatest of the gods, and also one of the most mysterious. More importantly, he was one of Arima's good friends, and Arima was rather touched by his enthusiasm.

"Were you looking for me?" he asked.

"Well, I was looking for someone," said Yumoto, looking up at him with a bright smile. "And I found you! I knew I would find somebody, if I looked."

"That is usually the way of things," Arima agreed cheerfully. "Is there any particular reason you were looking for someone? Or did you just want to see what you could find?"

"I was looking for someone to go on a picnic with," said Yumoto. "I already found a few people, but we can always add more. Do you want to go on a picnic, Arima?"

Arima thought about it. If there was one thing he had learned about Yumoto in their long acquaintance, it was that Yumoto appreciated good food. If he was having a picnic, whatever they would be eating would probably be worth the trip.

"Who else is going?" he asked.

"So far, En and Atsushi and me," said Yumoto.

"All right, I'll join in," said Arima. En and Yumoto were both interesting company in their own ways, and Atsushi was one of his dearest friends.

"Yay!" said Yumoto, bounding into the air. "Come on, then!"

He seized Arima by the arm and began dragging him forward, and there was nothing Arima could do but follow.

The two of them vanished in a swirl of red light that smelled oddly but not unpleasantly of sun-ripened strawberries and steaming rice. When they reappeared, the city was far behind them. Instead, they were standing on the side of a mountain. Cool green pine trees loomed all around, but not spaced so tightly that shafts of sunlight couldn't stream past them. Arima looked around appreciatively. He had lived most of his life in the City of Seven Pillars, but he had been born in a mountain town and he always had felt at home among the peaks. This site didn't look familiar, but it was enough like his childhood home to make his spirits lift.

"Oh, good, you found him," said a pleasant voice. That was Atsushi, leaning against a nearby tree. "Are we ready to go now?"

"I just got comfortable," En complained.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," said Arima.

Atsushi grinned. "Don't worry. I never expect anything to happen on any sort of regular schedule when Yumoto is in charge." At the look Yumoto gave him, he added. "You're spontaneous. It's a compliment."

Yumoto seemed to take it as such. He beamed.

"Ready to eat now?" he asked.

"I don't see anything to eat," said En, half-opening one eye. He had been lying on the ground, his head pillowed on a soft patch of moss. Of course, he was the god of sleep and dreams, and probably could have slept anywhere, including mid-air or the bottom of a lake, if he felt like it.

"Well, I wasn't planning to eat _here_ ," said Yumoto, as if that should have been obvious. "I thought we'd walk a little and pick out a good spot."

"Leaving it up to chance, eh?" Arima asked with a half-smile.

"You got it!" said Yumoto cheerfully.

"Well, I suppose that means we'd better start walking," said Atsushi. He bent to give his friend a hand up. "Come on, En."

"Remind me again why I agreed to this?" said En, but he got up anyway, dusting pine needles off his shining blue robes.

"Because Yumoto always has the best picnic food," Atsushi replied.

"Big Brother makes it," said Yumoto. He picked a likely-looking direction and began to walk.

"Why isn't he here, by the way?" Arima asked. "Is everything all right?"

The question seemed to make the others nervous. Last winter, just after Midwinter Night, there had been an event that was now called The Chaos War, though calling it a war was something of a misnomer. A war implied armies and nations. This had been a more personal affair: all the gods against a single man, and that was Yumoto's big brother, the God of Fate. The cause of the battle had been the fact that a wizard with more ambition than sense had kidnapped Yumoto, and without him around to juggle the odds and make sure nothing bad ever happened to his older sibling, Fate's darker persona, Chaos, had broken free. He had nearly managed to destroy the entire Heavenly City and a noticeable chunk of the earth besides, before Atsushi, En, and their friend Ryuu had managed to rescue Yumoto and reunite the brothers. Everyone was now just a little twitchy about separating the two of them for too long.

"He's fine," said Yumoto. "He's keeping an eye on the bathhouse." Apparently, he guessed what everyone was thinking, because he added, "Don't worry, he's safe. I don't need to be standing next to him all the time just to keep him safe. He just got scared before because he didn't know where I was."

Arima wasn't sure there hadn't been more to it than that, but he decided Yumoto probably understood it all better than he did. After all, Yumoto had been doing the job of keeping his brother in line since the dawn of time, and Arima had only been doing this god thing for a couple of years. He decided to change the subject.

"I've been wondering," he said. "Why is it that you and Gora don't have temples and priests? You two are the greatest of the gods, and yet I've seen only a few small shrines to you and nothing at all to your brother. It seems odd."

Yumoto shrugged. "No point to it."

"I don't follow," Arima admitted.

Yumoto scampered up the side of a large rock and balanced there on one foot, letting the other swing freely in the air. "Well, what's the point of having priests and things?"

"To act as liaisons between the gods and mortals," Arima answered promptly.

"Yeah, there's that," said Yumoto. "But that's just part of it, right? I mean, the really big thing people need priests for is to tell them what the rules are, and how to follow them."

"That's so," Arima agreed.

"So what kind of rules would Brother and I have?" Yumoto asked.

"I don't know," Arima admitted. "What kind of rules do you have?"

"None," said Yumoto. "I'm the god of chance, right? So sometimes I make one thing happen, and sometimes I make other things happen. No point in me making rules if I'm going to change my mind about them five minutes later. And Brother is Fate, so when he decides something is going to happen to someone, it does, whether he tells somebody to do it or not."

"I suppose that makes sense," said Arima.

Yumoto jumped down from his rock. "Besides, we're kind of in charge of everybody and everything. We made a lot of different kinds of people for a lot of different kinds of reasons, so we want some of them to do some things and some of them to do other things. It would be pretty hard for us to make rules to apply to everybody. I mean, we think it's good for some people to serve Aruite, and it's good for some people to serve Vesta, but could you imagine someone trying to follow both sets of laws at the same time?"

Arima considered that. Aurite's law, as he knew all too well, tended towards an abstemious mindset. His followers were not to overindulge on food or drink, and were expected to remain chaste before marriage and faithful afterwards. Vesta, on the other hand, was the god of romance and of physical pleasures in general, and his worshipers were encouraged to make the most of every good thing life had to offer.

"I suppose you're right," he said at last. "But it sounds a little bit lonely."

"It's okay," said Yumoto. "We have you guys for company."

"I have noticed you guys have been hanging around the Palace more often lately," said Atsushi.

"Yup," said Yumoto. "Brother said he thought it was a good idea, and I think he's right. It's hard to know what to do about the bath house, though. I mean, I can fix it so no one shows up when we're not around, but I hate to just abandon it. I really like that bath house."

"You'll think of something," said En. He hung around the baths more than any of them. The Palace had its own public baths, but he seemed to enjoy being the only one of the gods who actually knew where the brothers' bath house was at any given moment, and shamelessly took advantage of it.

The four of them walked aimlessly for a while. At least, Arima assumed that they were walking aimlessly. He didn't think Yumoto had any idea where they were going, but was simply trusting that if they walked far enough, eventually they would come upon a good site for a picnic. Given his nature, they probably would.

Instead, they struck a path. They didn't realize what it was, at first, because it was eroded, sunk into the earth and mostly covered in pine needles. It was only when they passed an open place where there were no trees for several meters did they realize that what they were walking on wasn't just a convenient gap in the trees, but an actual paved road, made of cleanly quarried gray stone.

"Hey, look at this," said Atsushi. He prodded one of the stones with his foot. "Who do you suppose put this here? There aren't any major cities nearby..."

"Let's follow it and see!" said Yumoto.

En frowned down at the stones. "I don't know. I don't have a good feeling. Random roads in the middle of nowhere are creepy."

"I want to know, though," said Yumoto, and picked up his pace, so that there was nothing to do but to follow him.

The road wound its way further up the mountain, looping around outthrusts of stone and worming its way through clefts. At last, they found themselves standing in front of the ruins of a great stone building. It looked very old, with only a few feet of wall and some broken pillars standing, but in the ornamentation of the few remaining stones, Arima could see traces of lost beauty. Everyone stopped to stare at it.

"Wow," said Atsushi. "What do you suppose it is? It looks like an old temple."

"It _is_ an old temple," said Yumoto. His eyes had gone wide and solemn.

En was the one who stepped forward, passing through the space where the front door would have been and into the remains of the sanctuary. His voice echoed back to them.

"Wow," he said. "I haven't seen one of these in eons. These are real second-age ruins."

Arima followed him into the sanctuary, brimming now with professional curiosity. He knew what the second age was. The first age was the age of creation, when Fate and Chance and the earliest gods had been fitting the universe together. The second age was the age when the newly created gods and mortals had still been running more or less unchecked over the earth, struggling with each other for dominance. It had been an age of strife and brutality, and had ended when the greater gods had struck down some of the most dangerous entities, sealed others away, and given a few others new, more peaceful responsibilities. After that began the third age, the age of civilization. There were some scholars who classified the age they were living in now as the fourth age, beginning with the day when a young man named Akoya had been chosen to become a god. It was the age of ascended mortals, and Arima was interested to see where it would lead. Second age temples, though, were unusual enough to be interesting.

"Can you tell who it's a temple to?" he asked, coming over to stand next to En.

En was leaning down to inspect and engraving on the wall. It was on the leeward side of the mountain, half buried in rubble but largely protected from the ravages of wind and rain, and therefore still mostly legible. Arima had never seen the specific design it bore, though. The wall was engraved with a stylized sunburst on one side, a crescent moon on the other, and between them, something that looked a bit like an egg with steam or heat rising off of it.

"Wow, would you look at that," En murmured, with something like appreciation. "When was the last time I saw one of these? I'd almost forgotten about this." He touched the egg-like symbol with one forefinger.

"I've never seen one at all," said Arima. "What in the world is it depicting?"

"I know that one," Yumoto chimed in, coming closer. "It's an old symbol for Fate. He doesn't use it much anymore. These days anyone wanting to draw a symbol for him uses an axe instead. It used to be an egg, though, for creation. That's why our bath house is called the Kurotama. But we don't use eggs much anymore."

"Why not?" Atsushi asked, as he joined them. "I mean, I guess an axe is a little more to the point, but..."

"Mostly because this particular cult used the egg symbol so much," said En. "It got a bad rep."

"So these were bad gods?" Atsushi asked. He looked around, expression alarmed, as though he expected them to jump out and attack him for daring to set foot on their property.

"Well, they weren't good," said En. "I don't know. I mean, I don't guess they were bad, but... well, they caused a lot of trouble, and we had to get rid of them."

"What were their names?" Arima asked.

"I forget what their real names were," said En, "but their titles were Sol and Luna. They were really powerful, back in the day - two of the strongest gods there were. You should ask Kinshiro about them. He fought with them. He'd remember."

They stood before the carving a moment longer, staring at it solemnly. Arima had never thought he would find anything as bright and beautiful as the sun and moon menacing, but something about this grim, desolate place was giving him chills.

"Let's have our picnic somewhere else," he said.

"Yeah," said Yumoto. He looked subdued. "I don't think staying here any longer would be a good idea."

"Maybe Akoya would let us use his meadow?" Atsushi asked.

Yumoto brightened immediately. "Hey, yeah, now that's a good idea! Let's go ask him. Maybe he wants to picnic too!"

He vanished, and his three friends followed him, leaving the temple once more empty.

* * *

One of the most remarkable sights in the known world were the Seven Pillars of Aurite. They stood in a loose ring near the center of the city that bore their name - seven vast monoliths reaching towards the sky. From a distance, a traveler could be excused for thinking that they were no more than a stand of dead trees, blasted limbless by fire or wind. It was only as you drew closer that you realized that these pillars were taller than trees, taller than castles, taller even than mountains. They stood so high that seen against the sky, they looked less like stones and more like cracks in the world. No one had ever been able to determine if they were made of stone or wood or some kind of metal. Whatever they were, they were rough, craggy, dull reddish-brown, and so hard that no tool could break or crack them. Though they were only a couple of feet wide, so thin that it seemed they must collapse under their own weight or topple at the slightest breeze, they had remained steadfast for centuries. Many brave risk-takers had endeavored to climb them. A few of those had fallen to their deaths, but most turned back long before reaching the top, dissuaded not so much by the immense height as by the unsettling aura the stones projected. No one wanted to build a home or business too close to them, no matter how much they trusted them to remain upright come storm or quake. Each of the seven pillars was surrounded by a ring of grass and wild plants, which was trimmed every week or so by a diligent gardener, and otherwise left alone.

That was probably why there was no one near to see several interesting things. The first was that a squirrel was climbing up one of the pillars. No wild creatures ever ventured too close to them, and even birds gave them a wide berth, but this squirrel made its way straight across the grassy verge and up its chosen pillar with a directness that was unusual in such a creature. The second oddity was that this wasn't just any squirrel - it was a flying squirrel, a species that didn't make its home anywhere near the City of Seven Pillars. Red squirrels were common there, but this squirrel wasn't red in the least. It was, in fact, a soft shade of green.

But the oddest thing, the most important thing, was the pillar itself. It was something that a human would have had to come very close to see. Standing even a foot or so away, it would have been almost invisible, hidden as it was amid the rough crags of the pillar's surface. There, where no damage had ever shown before, was a hairline crack about a foot long. The squirrel scampered up to it, examining it with clever paws and huge black eyes.

"Aha," it said to itself. "I thought so, dacha!"

With that, it leaned closer, fitted its teeth against the crack, and began to gnaw.

* * *

"Hello, I'm home," Atsushi called, as he wandered into his rooms.

Technically, this was his private space, created by the Palace itself to be perfectly suited to his tastes. The practical reality, though, was that he was happily married, and he'd given his beloved husband permission to wander in and out whenever he liked, and had in fact made sure that there was a connecting door between the two sets of living quarters. Since Kinshiro's rooms were almost purely functional, designed as places for him to get his work done in rather than relax in, that meant that Kinshiro spent most of his sparse free time in Atsushi's space.

Just now, in fact, Kinshiro was in Atsushi's sitting room, perched on one of the more upright armchairs, a book held delicately in one hand and a teacup in the other. He glanced up when he heard Atsushi enter the room.

"I was starting to wonder where you went," he said.

"Yumoto dragged us off on a picnic," said Atsushi. He flopped onto the sofa and made himself comfortable. "It was interesting, actually."

"I can imagine," said Kinshiro dryly. He had never completely approved of Yumoto. Respected him, yes, insofar as Yumoto was one of the people who helped keep the universe from folding in on itself and disappearing, but Kinshiro was the god of order, and Yumoto's haphazard nature irritated him. "Well, I can't say I'm sorry I missed it, but I'm glad you had fun."

"It was... educational," said Atsushi. He rolled over and leaned on the arm of the sofa so that he could look straight at his husband. "Say, Kinshiro... who were Sol and Luna?"

Kinshiro dropped his book and set the teacup down so hard it sloshed onto the end table. He yelped and scrambled to wipe drops of tea off his clothes.

"Where did you hear those names?" he demanded.

"En mentioned them," said Atsushi.

"Hm," said Kinshiro thoughtfully. He picked up his book and carefully smoothed the pages. "Well, he would remember them. He was around back then."

"So who were they?" Atsushi repeated.

Kinshiro scowled. "They were abominations. They never should have existed."

"Hm," said Atsushi.

"Don't go 'hm' at me," Kinshiro muttered. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it's my job to disapprove of things, and whatever they did probably wasn't something the rest of the world would think was that bad, and probably I'm overstating the case. Am I right?"

Atsushi blushed and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I guess I should know you better than that by now."

"Well, if you were thinking it, you probably had good reason," said Kinshiro, mollified. "But in this case, it really is true - Luna and Sol really were mistakes. They were created by accident."

"Tell me about it," Atsushi encouraged.

"There isn't much to tell," said Kinshiro. "It was way back, almost at the very beginning of things. Gora was experimenting, trying out this and that to see what would happen. He made this big egg and put a lot of different things in it, things that wouldn't normally go together - light and darkness, heat and cold, sound and silence, that sort of thing - and sealed them all up inside to see what would happen to them. I told him such a thing wasn't viable: either the disparate elements would force each other apart and the whole thing would split into pieces, or they would cancel each other out and there would be nothing left." Kinshiro shook his head. "He should have listened to me."

 _Well, that explains the egg symbol,_ Atsushi thought.

"So these two... they hatched out of an egg?" he asked, to see if he'd guessed right.

Kinshiro nodded. "It split apart, just like I said it would, and these two were inside, and they were... well, I had been expecting the egg to hatch into _things_ , objects, not something alive. And these two weren't just any living things, they were gods, but they were... well, _wrong_."

"How so?" Atsushi asked.

"Because a god is meant to have a purpose," said Kinshiro. "You can't just be a god in general, you have to represent something. It's part of our nature. You've noticed, haven't you?"

Atsushi nodded. That had been something of a shock, when he'd first made the transition from mortal to divine. Something like that couldn't help but change a person, and he'd noticed after a while how much his new duties had come to define his life. He had given up needing to obey physical demands for food or sleep, but he had traded those needs for the need to do his job. He didn't regret making the trade, but it wasn't something he could have understood until it happened to him.

"But these two... they were made up of too many mismatched parts. There was no direction for them they could go that wouldn't conflict with some part of them or another. And they were so strong... I can't understand how it happened. Nothing created by accident should have been so strong. I was all for destroying them the minute they came out of that egg, but you know Gora." He grimaced. "He was all for giving them a chance. He told me to leave them alone and wait and see how they'd turn out."

"I'm guessing not good," said Atsushi.

"Not good," said Kinshiro. "In the beginning, Gora made these two the gods of the sun and the moon, and that was fine. I'd have been happy if they had stayed that way. But after a while, people began calling them the gods of day and night, and then of light and darkness, and of winter and summer... practically everything, in other words. They were so versatile, there wasn't much they couldn't do when they put their minds to it. They were drawing worshipers away from other gods and towards themselves, and you know what happens when a god gains more attention from their followers."

Atsushi nodded. It was a fairly simple equation: the more followers a god had, and the more ardently they were worshiped, the stronger they became. If these two gods had managed to amass the sort of influence Kinshiro was talking about, they would have been very powerful indeed.

"They were staging a coup," said Kinshiro. "We had every reason to believe their ultimate intent was to unseat the rest of the pantheon and rule the universe themselves. It finally got to the point where even Gora admitted that letting them roam free was a bad idea, and even then, he still wouldn't let me destroy them. I sealed them up with seven seals, and put a temple on top of them so they would be guarded forever. Their temples were pulled down and their congregations scattered. That's the last any of us have ever heard of them."

"I see," said Atsushi. "I guess I can see why you didn't like me bringing them up."

Kinshiro's expression softened. "It's fine. How could you know? Most of this happened before even people like Io and Ryuu were born, so I definitely don't expect you to know everything about it."

"I think I'm glad I didn't live back then," said Atsushi.

"It wasn't your sort of time," Kinshiro agreed. He looked thoughtful. "Although..."

Atsushi sat up a little straighter. "Although?"

"Although," Kinshiro said, smiling a little, "it might have been nice if I'd known you back then. I wouldn't be sorry to have had more time with you."

"Well, you have me now," said Atsushi, smiling back. "And I don't plan to go anywhere any time soon."

"Then why don't I come to you instead?" Kinshiro replied. He set his book and cup aside and went to sit with Atsushi on the sofa. "We can talk about more pleasant subjects for a while."

"Sounds good to me," said Atsushi.

He decided that Kinshiro was probably right. All that had happened with Luna and Sol had happened eons ago, so long ago that even most of the gods didn't remember. It probably wasn't important anymore. Stumbling across that temple had just been one of those odd random incidents that happened when Yumoto was around, one that didn't mean anything at all. With a sigh, Atsushi settled into his husband's arms and put the whole thing out of his mind.

* * *

Night was falling over the City of Seven Pillars. Most of the businesses had already closed for the day, and the sound of crowds was fading, being slowly replaced by the sounds of crickets, night birds, and the ringing of the temple bells.

And then, another sound: the sound of something cracking.

One second, there was nothing on the grassy mound but the pillar itself, vast and inscrutable. In the next instant, two young men were standing there, back to back. Without turning, they reached towards each other, hands twining together in an instinctive gesture, leaning back until their shoulders touched. They were beautiful, these two, as lean and graceful as dancers, fair-haired and bright-eyed, with clever, piquant faces. They wore simple, toga-like garments, one fastened at the waist with a red cord, the other with a blue one. A wind played around them, blowing first from the east, carrying the cool scents of moonflower and juniper, and then from the west, smelling warmly of orange and spices. The two men sighed.

"I can see the sun," said one, gazing off at the western horizon.

"I can see the moon," answered the other. "It's been so long..."

Moving in eerie unison, they pivoted so that they were face to face, then fell into each other's arms.

"Brother," one murmured. "We finally made it."

"At last," the other replied. "We're free to begin again..."

They remained that way a little while longer. Then a small voice overhead said, "Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt this touching scene, but..."

The two of them looked up, their expressions registering annoyance at the intrusion. A squirrel peered interestedly back down at them, hanging nose-down from the side of the pillar.

"What do you want?" snapped the one who'd been staring at the sunset. "Can't you see this is a private conversation?"

"Who are you supposed to be anyway?" the other added.

"My name," said the squirrel proudly, "is Dadacha."

"I am Akihiko," said one of the men grandly, "and this is my brother Haruhiko, but _you_ should address us as Luna and Sol."

"Of course, of course," said Dadacha. "It's an honor to meet you both. I've heard so much about you."

Haruhiko's eyes narrowed. "You have a lot of nerve, talking to us. We're _gods_ , and you're just a tiny little imp."

"Yes, yes, I quite understand," said the squirrel pleasantly. "But I'm also the one who broke your seal, so I think I should get some credit for that."

He scampered a little further up the pillar and indicated the cracked pillar with a flick of his tail. Both gods leaned in for a better look. The crack definitely had a gnawed look about it.

" _You_ let us out?" asked Haruhiko skeptically. "These pillars were created by Aurite himself, meant to hold us imprisoned for all eternity, and a little fluffy green imp broke one of them?"

"Well, uh..." Dadacha groomed his whiskers in embarrassment. "I just happened to notice a crack was forming in one of them, so I decided to hurry things along a little."

"And why did you do that?" Akihiko asked. "What made you think we wouldn't just squash you flat as soon as we saw you? That's what most self-respecting gods would do."

"Yes, but you're not the everyday sort of gods, are you?" Dadacha answered. "The legends say you were the greatest of the gods once."

"Greatest of the _created_ gods," Haruhiko corrected irritably.

"Of course, of course, what you said," Dadacha replied, flicking his tail in agitation. He had the air of a squirrel who knew he had just said something wrong and didn't quite know what it had been. "The point is, you were powerful once - more so than most of the other gods combined."

"That's better," said Haruhiko. "Go on."

"Well, it's also true that - don't take this the wrong way - a lot of people in the pantheon aren't going to be very happy to see you again," said Dadacha. "In fact, they're probably going to be working as hard as they can to put you back in your seal. Basically, what I'm saying is that my enemies are your enemies, and I think we ought to work together."

"Do you really think we would lower ourselves to working with imps?" Akihiko asked. "Why shouldn't we just turn you into a pair of green fur-lined gloves and go find ourselves some real minions?"

Dadacha's whiskers flicked nervously, but he kept his voice calm as he answered, "For one thing, the humans barely even remember you exist anymore. You'd have to talk to thousands of them before you'd find one who even so much as knows your names. You need an in with them if you want to rebuild your congregation. Two, you've been out of circulation a long time - a lot of things have happened that you don't know about yet. You need someone who knows the history and culture to tell you things. And three, you need a base of operations. You aren't going to be welcome in the Heavenly City or any of the underworlds, and staying on the mortal plane is just asking to be caught. I can set you up safely in the Abyss where the gods can't find you."

The twins looked at each other.

"He does raise a point," Akihiko said. "There's no point in bringing down trouble by making ourselves conspicuous too early."

Haruhiko stared at Dadacha thoughtfully. "What's in it for you?"

Dadacha, apparently sensing that they were coming around, scurried a little further down the pillar, putting himself on their eye level.

"I'm only a little imp," he said. "I could never make it as a greater demon, never mind aspiring to demon lord. I've got nothing to look forward to but the day some god will decide to squash me because I was in his way. The best thing I can do is attach myself to someone more powerful. I can be useful to you, you protect me, we all win."

"It sounds to me like you'd be getting more out of this than we would," said Haruhiko. "What do you think, Aki?"

Aki shrugged. "I suppose we must start somewhere. At least he'll be loyal. He can't go to the gods, and if he allies with us, the demons will never take him back. Once we take him on board, he'll have nowhere else to go."

Dadacha made a small noise as though this hadn't occurred to him before. Haru looked at him and smiled with amusement.

"All right. Let's keep him," he said. "He's funny."

"Thank you!" said Dadacha. "You won't regret it!"

"That's up to you, isn't it?" said Aki. "Now, I believe you said something about finding us a place to stay?"

"Right, of course," said Dadacha. "It's not much, but it will do until you've got something better."

"Oh, don't worry," said Aki airily. "We're more than capable of making some improvements..."

* * *

"...so I really think you would be the best person to deal with this," Kinshiro was saying.

Ryuu nodded. He, Kinshiro, Arima, and Atsushi were sitting together in Kinshiro's office. It wasn't often that Kinshiro asked for his help with anything, but in cases like this, he was willing to agree that there was no one better to call.

"Sure, I'm up to it," he said. "It doesn't strike me as a complicated case."

The case in question involved, as it so often did when Ryuu was called to consult, a philandering spouse. In this case, it was a middle-aged husband who had responded to seeing gray hairs in the mirror by trying to recapture his youth. Unfortunately, he'd decided to do so by chasing after younger women. Ryuu, who was naturally familiar with the husband and wife in question, knew full well that the man still loved his wife, and suspected that deep down he was afraid she would lose interest in him as he aged, and was doing this in an effort to make his wife jealous. As far as Ryuu could tell, it was working to some extent - she _was_ jealous, but considered it her duty to defer to her husband's desires and keep her own needs to herself, which meant she was bottling up her feelings and pretended she didn't notice or didn't mind, which was only making the husband even more certain she didn't want him anymore. It was a breakdown waiting to happen, in other words, and a totally unnecessary one at that. Ryuu would be more than happy to start piecing things back together again.

"If you say so," said Kinshiro, with one eyebrow slightly arched.

"Hey, I know my business," said Ryuu. "I know when a relationship can be saved and when it can't. This one can, if I can just get them talking to each other. It'll go faster if you'll loan me Arima for a few minutes."

Arima, who had been silent up until then, offered up a smile. "I'd be happy to assist, if you think I'd be useful."

"You can at least talk some sense into that woman," said Ryuu. "I'd lay good odds that this whole thing would be settled in an evening if someone could just get her to say what she's feeling."

"That, I can do," said Arima with a smile.

"Good," said Atsushi. He was the one who had prompted this meeting in the first place, having reviewed the man in question's case and recommended an attempt at salvation rather than punishment. "I really didn't want to punish anyone over this if we can get it settled peacefully."

"No doubt about it," Ryuu assured him.

"In that case, I think this meeting is concluded," said Kinshiro. "Thank you both for..."

Then it happened. One minute, everyone in the room was relaxed, content, eager to get their jobs done. The next minute, a shockwave ran through the room. Kinshiro gasped and clutched at his side as if someone had stabbed him. Ryuu doubled over, seized by a sudden wave of nausea. Arima made a gagging noise. Ryuu thought distractedly that he'd never seen a god throw up before, but Arima looked like he might be the first. His face had gone greenish-white. Only Atsushi seemed unaffected.

"Guys? What happened? Are you okay?" he asked anxiously.

"Ugh," said Arima, grimacing. "That was _horrible_. What was it?"

"I don't know," said Ryuu. He swallowed hard, trying to get his own stomach to settle. "If you've got a guess, I'd be glad to hear it."

"Nothing good, that's for sure," said Kinshiro. He rubbed absently at his side, as though whatever phantom pain had struck still troubled him. "It's interesting that we all reacted differently. Atsushi, did you feel anything at all?"

"Not really," he admitted. "A little shiver, maybe. I probably wouldn't have noticed a thing if you three hadn't reacted."

"And yet, I felt as though someone had just gashed me with a knife," said Kinshiro thoughtfully, "and that isn't what you two felt at all, was it?"

"Not at all," said Arima. He still looked rather pale. "I wish I had felt like that. This felt more like that time when I was twelve and ate those sausages that had gone off." He shook himself again. "Ugh."

"I've never had that problem before," Ryuu admitted, "but if this is what it feels like, I'm glad it never happened to me. I've felt like this before, but never _that_ badly, and never all of a sudden like that."

Kinshiro gave him a keen look. "You know what this is, then? What caused it?"

"Sort of," said Ryuu. He squirmed. He didn't much care for being put on the spot like this. His work was supposed to be all fun and games, not trying to explain difficult concepts to someone known for asking probing questions. "Okay, it's kind of like... Well, think about this, maybe. Do you ever run into some shyster who's figured out some way to take a perfectly good law and apply it in some way it was never meant to be used to do something that's the opposite of what was intended?"

From the way Kinshiro gritted his teeth, Ryuu inferred that yes, he probably had.

"It feels awful, right? Like some housewife with an eggbeater is stirring up your insides. Your head spins, your pulse pounds, your hands get all sweaty, your stomach churns, you can't breathe..."

"It's like you're being unmade," Arima said softly.

"Ah," said Kinshiro, nodding. "I understand now. So this is something that affects the two of you... love and devotion."

"But not the good kind," Ryuu concluded. "This is the kind of obsession that eats a person alive, and it came out of _nowhere_. That's weird. Usually that kind of thing builds up over time. It doesn't just come down on someone like an avalanche."

Kinshiro frowned. "Whatever it is, I don't like it. Can you two still sense it?"

Ryuu paused, considering. Arima looked equally thoughtful.

"Yeah," said Ryuu at last. "I think I still have a line on it."

"I definitely still sense it," said Arima. "I can almost feel it pulling on me."

"Let it pull," Kinshiro advised. "Find it and stop it, whatever it is. Anything that strong and that unpleasant isn't doing anyone any good. And let me know what it is when you figure it out."

Ryuu sighed. He would much rather have been sorting out other people's marital problems then dealing with whatever this was. Still, Kinshiro was right. Whatever it was, it was bound to be trouble, and it was best to sort it out as soon as possible.

"I'll ask around and see if anyone else felt it," he offered. "Maybe we can home in on it better if we have more information."

"It's worth a try," said Atsushi. "Should I check some of my resources as well?"

He looked anxious, and Ryuu didn't blame him. Ryuu would be anxious too, if something had been hurting one of his consorts. If he had been Atsushi, he'd have been ready to hunt down whatever it was and throttle it. Anything that could hurt a god, even temporarily, wasn't good.

"You might as well try," said Kinshiro thoughtfully. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"And on that note," said Arima, "I'm going to get started. I don't like this one bit. It's all wrong."

"Guess I'd better get going too," Ryuu agreed. He didn't like to show it, but he was rattled. It wasn't just the whatever-it-was, though that was bad enough. Seeing Arima this agitated, though... that was something new. Arima was unflappable. How bad must he be feeling to let his nerves show this way?

 _The first thing I'm going to do,_ he decided, _is check on Io and Akoya. If this thing is getting to them the way it's getting to me..._

Well, if it was, it had better be ready, because it was going to be surprised how violent a god of love could be.


	2. The Poet and the Priest

Akoya had never figured out how many rooms the Palace of the Gods had. He had a hunch that the number wasn't definite, and increased or decreased according to the needs of its inhabitants. His own rooms, for example, had started out fairly small in number, and had been expanding over the years until he had quite the respectable bit of property, and that wasn't even counting the fact that his suite had a connecting door to Ryuu's quarters. He was reasonably sure there was at least one room for every major god in the pantheon, along with any number of public rooms, ranging from the great hall where the gods gathered for meals or meetings on down to cozy parlors where they could gather in twos or threes for more intimate gatherings.

This room was somewhere in between those extremes, a plushly appointed sitting room full of fluffy armchairs and overstuffed sofas, deep soft carpeting, and a fireplace large enough to stable a pony. It was a place for socializing, and just now, Akoya and a number of his friends were taking advantage of it. It had, Akoya gathered, been a hard day for several of them - he'd learned from Ryuu that there had been some sort of disturbance, and that Ryuu, Arima, and several others had spent the better part of the previous night and most of a day hunting for it without success. Whatever it was, it seemed to have gone away on its own. Now they were all resting from their efforts while they considered their next move. Akoya himself sat tucked in one corner of the room, embroidering while he chatted with a few companions. Not far away, Io and Ryuu were playing a board game and arguing good-humoredly over the rules. Nearer the center of the room, En and Atsushi were playing a card game against Gora and Yumoto and not losing as badly as one might expect. Apparently, the lords of the universe didn't feel the need to use their inherent abilities to cheat at cards... not very much, anyway. At a small table against one wall, Kinshiro and Arima were sharing a bottle of wine while discussing a play that had recently debuted.

Akoya had to smile at that. He could remember a time, not even very long ago, when Kinshiro had been an adamant teetotaler. Then he had married a man who had learned how to brew beer at his mother's knee, and who still liked a pint or two once in a while, and it had seemed silly to go on acting like alcohol was a menace to society. These days, Kinshiro was willing to allow that a glass of wine after dinner wasn't going to do him any harm. It did Akoya good to see his old friend looking so relaxed and happy.

 _He really has mellowed,_ he thought, watching as Kinshiro topped off his companion's drink. Marriage had done Kinshiro a lot of good, and having Arima join the pantheon had improved his mood even further. It really was cute how fond Kinshiro has become of his former high priest.

 _Maybe someday,_ Akoya mused, _in a few more centuries, after the honeymoon gloss has worn off, he and Atsushi will reach the same sort of arrangement with Arima that Io and Ryuu came to with me._ Certainly Arima was very fond of Atsushi, and clearly adored Kinshiro, and the two of them were equally attached to him. Perhaps, Akoya thought, he should talk to Ryuu about arranging something of the sort.

 _Or maybe not,_ he decided, and smiled at himself. _If Kinshiro gets any more content, he'll be too mellow to feel like punishing people, and we'll have to give his job to someone else._

He was still chuckling over that idea when a voice cut into his musing. He turned irritably towards a man at another table, who was speaking loudly enough that the entire room could hear him. A few people close to him were wincing and edging away from the noise.

"What I'm saying," he announced to the room in general, "is that divinity doesn't necessarily make one infallible, even within one's own realm of influence. We shouldn't always rely on them as the absolute arbiters of..."

Akoya sighed. _I'll bet I know what this is about._

The obnoxious speaker was Katari, otherwise known as the god of poetry, and he was not one of Akoya's favorite deities. He should have been - after all, Akoya was the god of beauty, and had been fond of poetry even before he'd taken up that particular mantle. Instead, he and Katari had been engaged in a low-key feud almost from the moment he'd arrived at the Palace of the Gods. Unfortunately, the two of them moved in much the same circles and shared a lot of the same friends, so running into each other was inevitable. Most of the time they managed to be more or less civil to each other, but a few days ago, Akoya had made the mistake of criticizing the work of one of Katari's favorite followers, and Katari had yet to forgive him for it.

"...presence merely influences the state of the universe," Katari was saying, to anyone who was still listening. "That effect is totally independent of their own opinions. It doesn't matter if, for example, the god of music likes or dislikes a particular song. Their opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else's. All they really do is influence the world in such a way that people produce music. Or to use another example, suppose our friend Akoya here were to voice his opinion on someone's work..."

"At least I shut up sometimes," Akoya muttered.

But Katari must have been watching for some sign of getting a rise out of him. He turned on Akoya with a falsely bright smile.

"Did you have something to contribute, Pearlite?" he asked sweetly.

"Just wishing for a moment's peace and quiet," said Akoya. "I'm getting awfully tired of your barbs, Katari. Could you please just give it a rest, for once?"

"Why, I'm hurt!" said Katari. "All I was doing was offering you a chance to put in your opinion. There's no need to be rude."

This, Akoya thought, was what came of getting into verbal sparring matches with a man who specialized in the use of words. He sighed.

"There was no need to imply my taste is suspect, either," he said.

A triumphant gleam came into Katari's eyes. "Are you saying it isn't?"

"I'm entitled to my own opinion," said Akoya, as levelly as he could.

"But not to have the rest of us respect it," Katari replied. "God of beauty or not, you have to admit that your judgment hasn't always been sound in the past."

 _Oh, here we go again,_ Akoya thought. He really wasn't in the mood to put up with this. Time to go on the offensive.

"And to what incident might you be referring?" he asked delicately.

"Well, for example," said Katari, "there's the fact that you had the opportunity to choose practically anyone in the pantheon - choose from among gods representing the highest of ideals - and you chose instead to sell yourself out for money and sensual pleasures."

Out of the corner of his eye, Akoya saw Io and Ryuu set their game pieces aside and stand up. He waved a hand at them, indicating they should sit down. He could handle this.

"By which of course you mean," he replied, "that I should have considered _your_ proposal more seriously?"

Katari looked somewhat embarrassed at having it put so bluntly. "I'm only pointing out that your priorities seem to be a bit... shallow."

"Oh, really?" said Akoya, arching one elegant eyebrow. "Well, then, so be it. What you don't seem to understand is that I _like_ money and sensual pleasures. I like them a great deal. I don't see why I ought not to have them if people are willing to give them to me. Perhaps that does make me shallow, but if so, that's part of my personality. If you can't accept that about me, then it would seem to mean that you were only courting me for my looks and status, and not out of any genuine respect for me. That makes you as shallow as I am. The only difference is that I own up to it."

Katari went bright red as several people in the room began to snicker. Someone near the back of the crowd shouted, "You walked into that one, Katari!" From their seat in the corner, Io and Ryuu flashed Akoya approving smiles, and Ryuu gave him a thumbs-up. Kinshiro, ever impartial, seemed to be struggling to keep a straight face. Akoya smiled.

"Was there anything else you wished to discuss?" he asked sweetly.

"Oh... do whatever you want!" Katari huffed, and stomped out of the room.

"Perhaps you shouldn't have done that," said Kinshiro, though he still looked like he was trying not to smile. 'That attitude of yours is going to get you into trouble someday, Akoya."

"Lecture _him_ about his attitude, if you like," said Akoya. "He's been doing nothing but needle me for weeks and I'm tired of it."

Ryuu wandered over and draped his arms around him. "Well, I, for one, think you were fabulous."

Akoya felt himself warming with pleasure at his husband's approval... and also with pleasure in general. Being hugged by the god of love was always a nice experience.

"He was being ridiculous," said Akoya. "Anyway, I don't care what people like him say. I'd have chosen you two out of anyone, no matter what other choices I had. You know that."

"We know and we appreciate," said Io, smiling.

The party was going back to its normal pace, everyone returning to what they had been doing before the drama started. Akoya disentangled himself from Ryuu's embrace and stood up.

"I don't think I can top that performance tonight," he said, "so I'm going to retire for the evening."

"Care for company?" asked Ryuu.

"Certain company, at least," said Akoya, flashing him a coy smile. "I'll let you guess which company I'm talking about."

Io laughed and took his arm. "Do I get a prize if I guess right? I like prizes."

"I'm sure I can come up with something," said Akoya.

Already he was feeling more relaxed. Maybe now, having made a fool of himself once, Katari would mind his own business for a while. In the meantime, there were much more important things to think about.

Ryuu came up on Akoya's other side and put an arm around his waist.

"How about the three of us go back to my room," he suggested, "and have a couple of drinks while you think?"

"That sounds like an excellent plan," Akoya agreed.

They left the chatter of the parlor behind them. Akoya was content to do so. He liked all his friends individually, but most large crowds grew tiresome after a while. He was more than happy to be going somewhere quieter with the people he trusted the most. And that was what it was all about, wasn't it? When it all came down, he hadn't married Io for his vast wealth or Ryuu for his personal talents. He'd married them because they loved him, and because they had taught him how to love other people. Everything else, pleasant as it might be, was just a bonus. He'd have taken them if they had been the gods of wind or travel or carpet-making.

 _And if certain people can't understand that,_ Akoya thought, _then that will just have to be their problem._

* * *

Trying to claim any city in the world was the most beautiful would have led to several hours of strenuous and unproductive debate. It would have been very hard, for example, to make the argument that the sight of a sunset over Candlehearth's polished copper roofs was more thrilling than the sight of gondolas floating tranquilly through the canals that made up Cerulean City, or that the myriad waterfalls that spilled through the mountain city of Misthold were somehow inferior to the glittering bazaars of Goldenport. However, all were agreed that there was no city more ornate than Pearlite's holy city of Lightflower. It had once been just another town, a place that made its living mostly through trade and crafts. These days, it was hardly recognizable as the place it had once been, so much had it been altered by Pearlite's influence. The city was a feast for the senses. Every street was a work of art, patterned in different colored cobblestones or tiles. Even the humblest houses had a few designs etched or painted into its walls. Every intersection had pots of flowering plants on the corners, adding color and delicious scent to their surroundings. Musicians flourished there, so that it was hard to go anywhere without some sort of musical accompaniment in the background. The stores were filled with glittering goods - jewelry, beautiful clothes, works of art, elegantly ornamented furniture, sparkling glass bottles of perfume. Even the meals were dished out with artistic flourishes.

Amid all this splendor, Ouso Tsukuna felt a bit under-prepared.

He had always wanted to come to this city. Ever since his youth, beauty had been a passion with him. He had worshiped fervently at Pearlite's temple in his own hometown, and had early proclaimed himself to be one of the god's official devotees. He had done his best to live up to Pearlite's strictures - to keep himself well-groomed, to conduct himself with dignity, to surround himself with beautiful objects, to commit himself to the study of art and other such worthwhile subjects. Up until now, he had always felt that Pearlite had repaid him adequately. He _was_ beautiful - he must be, because Pearlite promised his blessings to all those who rigorously followed his laws, and Ouso had been as punctilious as he could be. All that remained for him to present himself at a suitable temple and ask to be accepted as an initiate. His plan had been to do so here, at the greatest temple of them all, but now he was beginning to wonder if perhaps he should have started a bit smaller and worked his way up. Everyone was just so _grand_ here. Even the poorest people managed to make him feel dowdy in comparison.

 _It will be all right,_ he told himself firmly. _They give you robes and things once you join the order. You won't have to worry about clothes for long._

Pulling himself erect and holding his head high, he strode determinedly down the increasingly ornate streets.

At the end of the longest and most extravagantly decorated street stood the Great Temple of Pearlite itself, the crown jewel of the city. It really was jeweled, Ouso realized. And why not? No one would dare steal from the husband of the god of wealth. Still, it was awe-inspiring to see this wedding cake of a building, a shining edifice of pink marble and mother of pearl inlays, sparkling with diamonds and amethyst in the noonday sun. Ouso tried to imagine what building such a thing must have cost and couldn't fit the idea into his head.

Outside the temple, he could see three young men lounging about near the front door. They wore the simple robes that marked them as initiates, in various shades of pink, lilac, and white. Pearlite was unique among the gods in how much flexibility he gave his priests in the colors they wore. Yes, they had to wear some semblance of his colors, but not if it meant putting on something that didn't flatter their skin tone. Of these, one was a young man with the dark skin and black hair of a man of the far west, and with the kind of sultry eyes and sensuous mouth that probably made scores of admirers swoon over him. The second was tall and fair, in the manner of the northerners, with broad shoulders and a square jaw. He could have posed as the model for some sculpture of a legendary warrior. The third was golden-skinned and sharp-featured, with the lean, graceful body of a dancer. Taken all together, they were the most beautiful group of men Ouso had ever seen.

"Um, excuse me?" he said. "Is this the temple of Pearlite?"

The craggy warrior type rolled his eyes and said, "No, of course not. This is the temple of the water goddess, can't you tell?"

The other two sniggered. Ouso felt his cheeks burning.

"It's no laughing matter!" he blurted. "I... I'm under a demon's curse! It makes it hard for me to perceive holy objects as they really are. They placed it on me so I wouldn't be able to seek the help of the gods to aid me."

"Yeah, right," the dancer muttered. "And I'm the emperor's aunt."

"It's true!" Ouso insisted. Already the details of the story were pouring into his mind, spreading their tendrils like some fast-growing vine. "And the curse can only be broken by the water of Pearlite's sacred spring. I have no choice but to devote myself to the service of the god so I can become a priest and learn its secret location."

"Uh-huh," said the sultry-eyed man. "And I suppose then Pearlite will make you his high priest and invite you to become his attendant."

"Not until I've slain the demon who cursed me," said Ouso.

"Look, kid," said the square-jawed warrior. "If we wanted to hear stories, we'd go to the auditorium. Get lost. Pearlite hasn't got any use for liars."

"But I'm not lying!" Ouso protested.

The three men began converging on him, their expressions forbidding. Ouso managed to hold his ground for a second or two more before turning tail and running. Behind him, he could hear their scoffing remarks, and even after they were too far away to discern their words, their scornful laughter was all too clear.

 _I'm not lying,_ Ouso told himself fiercely. It wasn't that he was trying to deceive anybody. These things just came to him when he was under pressure, and they seemed to explain the universe so much better than the actual truth ever had. For the few seconds when he told those stories, he actually believed them himself. _If they had just been nicer to me, I wouldn't have needed to make anything up. Who are they to tell me I'm lying? For all they know, it might have been the truth. They don't know anything..._

He continued to embroider that theme as he walked further and further from the temple. He didn't know where he was going. He'd used up all his money just to get this far. He'd been operating under the assumption that the temple would take him in, and hadn't made any other plans. Now he had no way to get back home, and nowhere else he could go. At last, he wandered into one of the city's many gardens and sat down on a bench near an ornamental pond.

"Maybe I am under a curse," he muttered. He scooped up a stone and tossed it into the water, watching the ripples roll away from him. "Nothing ever seems to go right for me, and it isn't my fault. I'm doing everything right. I'm beautiful and sensitive! Pearlite ought to want me in his temple, so why didn't he stop them from throwing me out? It _must_ be some kind of curse. It isn't my fault..."

He was still repeating this to himself when a flicker of motion caught his attention. A squirrel had just run past him - not an unusual thing, in a park like this, except that this squirrel had been bright green. Ouso sat up and stared.

"That was a demon," he said aloud.

The demon stopped and sat up to look at him with its huge black eyes.

"You're nothing to write home about yourself, you know," it said.

With that, it turned around and bounded away with a flick of its fluffy tail.

"Hey, come back here!" Ouso shouted, surging to his feet. Suddenly it was all so clear to him: this demon had been following him, taunting him, waiting for some opportunity to make a fool of him. Surely everything that had gone wrong for him today had been this creature's fault. True, this was only a very small demon, just a little imp, really, but even those creatures could cause significant trouble when they had a mind to. Ouso felt himself growing angry. He should have known it would be something like this. How dare this ridiculous little fluffy thing humiliate him this way? Without even thinking about it, he took to his heels and raced after it.

He didn't have to race very far. The squirrel ran in a straight line deep into the trees, always staying just far enough ahead that Ouso didn't have a chance of capturing it, but never getting so fast that he could lose sight of its pale shape in the shadows. If Ouso had taken a moment to think about it, he might have almost thought that the creature was leading him. Instead, he thought only of what he would do to this impertinent imp when he caught up to it... and then of how much he hated running and how out of breath he was getting. Still, he staggered onwards, huffing and puffing, feeling sweat running down his cheeks, until he was sure he would collapse if he tried to go another step. Only then did he pause, leaning over and bracing his hands against his knees as he tried to catch his breath. For a few seconds, he did nothing but pant and gasp. Gradually, his heart rate settled and he found that he could breathe again.

He also found that he couldn't tell where he was anymore. It hadn't seemed like such a big park when he'd wandered into it. He was reasonably sure that he had been able to see the roofs of buildings on the far side of it. Now he couldn't see anything but trees and shadows. The sun had slid lower in the sky while he'd sat and moped, and now it was dark beneath the thick boughs. A thin mist had slid in between the tree trunks, further baffling Ouso's eyes. Slowly, he turned in a circle. There was no sign of the route he'd followed into the grove. There was no sign of the imp. There was no sign of the city anywhere, not even the distant glimmer of a lamp or the sparkle of the sun against a spire. For all that he could see, he was alone in the middle of a hundred miles of forest.

This was exactly the kind of thing Ouso used to fantasize about: finding himself miraculously transported into the middle of some sort of magical adventure. He didn't like it very much now that it had happened to him.

"Hello?" he called, continuing to turn in small circles. "Is anyone there? Mr. Demon, are you still here?"

A laugh bubbled up from somewhere in the forest. It was soft, airy, delighted, as if whoever emitted it had just discovered something unexpectedly lovely. Ouso didn't like it one bit.

"Who's there?" he shouted, balling his shaking hands into fists.

"Relax," said a voice. If it wasn't the voice of the man who had laughed, it was close enough that Ouso couldn't tell the difference. "You don't have to be afraid of us. We're your friends."

"We could be, anyway," said a second voice, not unlike the first. "We could be very helpful to you, if you let us."

From out of the shadows and mist, two forms emerged. Ouso found himself staring at two slender young men, with hair the color of moonlight and eyes the color of the setting sun. They were dressed in the manner he associated with priests - long robes worn over simple shirts and loose trousers, and sandals on their feet instead of sturdier shoes or boots. These two were not wearing any colors he'd ever seen a priest wear before, and he thought he knew the signature colors of all the major gods. Their outer robes were black, which was hardly uncommon, but their shirts and the trim of their robes were in an eye-smarting shade of watermelon pink, as if they were just daring the world to stare at them. One young man wore his robe more closely tailored, his sleeves more form-fitting and his collar more simply cut. The other wore his sleeves with a wide dramatic flair, and the front of his shirt was slightly ruffled. Both of them wore silver belts at their waists, one held with a buckle in the shape of a sunburst and the other in the shape of a crescent moon. They were smiling in a way Ouso found unsettling.

"Who are you?" he asked nervously. Something about the way their strange eyes shone in the dark...

"We're gods," said one of them. "You may call me Luna, and this is my brother Sol."

"Oh!" said Ouso. He found himself wondering what he was supposed to do. Kneel? Bow? Fling himself down on his face and grovel? For all he'd imagined meeting gods all his life, he had usually imagined himself in some position of great honor, being thanked for his service or being invited to become a high priest. He had not imagined being ignominiously rescued because he'd managed to get lost in a forest while chasing an imp. "I... um... I'm honored to, ah..."

"Yes, yes, of course you are," said the one called Sol. "Fortunately we are very generous gods, and will overlook your deficiencies."

"Thank you," said Ouso. "So, ah... if you don't mind my asking... what exactly are you the gods of?"

That was, apparently, the right question. The two gods' smiles broadened, showing teeth.

"We?" said Sol. "I'm the god of the sun."

"The moon," Luna chimed in.

"Day."

"Night."

"Light."

"Darkness."

"Heat."

"Cold."

"Winter."

"Summer."

As they spoke, the two of them were walking slow circles around Ouso, one traveling clockwise, the other counterclockwise. They moved slightly out of sync with each other, so that they never crossed each other's paths in the same place twice. Ouso found himself turning around and around in place, trying to keep his eyes on both of them at once and failing. The impression of the two of them circling him in the fog was that he was surrounded by dozens of gods, rather than only two. He found himself growing dizzy.

"In other words," Sol concluded, relishing the phrase, "we are the gods of..."

"Everything," Luna hissed.

"Oh," said Ouso in a small voice. "But..."

"But there are other gods, yes?" said Luna. "Small, petty gods of very limited horizons. What use are they, I ask you? How can one respect a god whose only talent is for something petty like glassmaking or woodcutting? What use is a god who is good only for teaching people how to put more cash in their pockets, even when it comes at the cost of everything else?"

"For that matter," said Sol, "what use is a god of beauty who can't appreciate his own followers?"

That hit the mark. Ouso's eyes widened. "You know about that?"

"Of course we do," said Luna. "We know everything."

"We're the greatest of all the beings Fate created," said Sol. "Greater even than the other gods. But they were jealous of us."

"They sealed us away, eons ago," said Luna, "to stop us from unseating their silly little pantheon and taking over the universe ourselves. But they couldn't keep us sealed forever, could they?"

"Not at all," Sol agreed. "Nothing can stop us forever."

Ouso listened to all this with a sense of creeping horror. Unseating the gods themselves? That was blasphemy. Was a god capable of blasphemy? Were these even gods at all? They said so, but what if they were more demons in disguise? Demons could make themselves look like men, after all, but would even a demon be so brash as to disguise itself as a god and claim to be one?

And the biggest question of all: no matter what these two really were, why were they here talking to him?

"What do you want with me?" he asked aloud.

Luna flashed him a sunny smile. "Isn't it obvious? We already told you, we're your friends. We saw that you were being ill-used by the lesser gods, and we want to help. That is what gods do, isn't it - help those who need help?"

"I suppose so," said Ouso. "But what can I do for you, though?"

Sol gave him a desultory look up and down. "Well, we could probably use a priest or two."

Ouso choked. "You'd offer me that job? Just like that?"

"I don't see why not," said Luna. "Somebody has to do it. And you'd be a good priest, yes? You'd be loyal to us, wouldn't you, and do whatever we told you?"

"Of course!" Ouso blurted. He'd said it without thinking, but it was true, wasn't it? This was just the sort of chance he'd always dreamed of. Whoever these two were, they had chosen him and him alone and offered him a position of influence. He couldn't turn down a chance like that. Suddenly it seemed to him that to be the servant of these two beings, who were so beautiful and graceful and powerful, would be the most wonderful thing that could happen to him.

 _I don't care if they're gods or demons. It doesn't really matter. All that matters is that they want me, and I'm going to have an adventure at last..._

"Very good," said Luna, beaming. "I can see we're going to get along just fine. Now, the first thing we're going to have to do is get you settled in our new temple, and then we'll be able to really get started..."

He reached out his hand, and Ouso, without thinking, took it. It was ice cold, but before he could pull back, the hand closed tightly around his. Sol reached for his other hand, and Ouso cried out, because the touch was so hot that it burned. The sense of heat and cold coursing up and down his arms and clashing in his center was too much for him, and he didn't even realize it when they all vanished together.

* * *

In the beginning, there had been everything they wanted.

The two of them had come into being inside an egg, and it had been a wonderful place to be. The shell surrounded and sheltered them, keeping them safe, and inside the egg was... well, everything. Heat, cold, light, darkness, sound, silence... all of it was there, and they were part of it all, and it was part of them. Gradually, they had become aware of each other as _other_ , and they had been delighted. They each had their other half, each possessing what the other lacked, and everything was perfect. If the egg had never hatched, they would have been happy forever.

But it was the nature of eggs to hatch, and one day one of them had become aware that the shell of their egg, always so reassuring before, seemed uncomfortably close that day. He had reached out with one hand, attempting to push it back where it belonged, and instead it had given way beneath his hand. He cried out and tried to clutch at the crumbling pieces, to put them back into place, but instead his hand had reached out beyond the gap and into something... other.

"Hey, look," a voice somewhere outside exclaimed. "It's starting to open!"

Now the egg was breaking apart quickly, and the brothers were afraid. They had never imagined that there could be anything outside the safe walls of their own private universe, and they had no idea what to do now that those walls were falling down all around them. They whimpered and clung to each other, naked and chilled, as the only home they had ever known collapsed into dust and disappeared.

"Wow, there's two of them," said the first voice, piping and youthful. "I wasn't expecting that."

"I told you so," said another voice, deeper and thoroughly disapproving. "I said right from the beginning - either the elements would collapse into each other and the egg would implode, or they would split apart into separate beings."

"Well, yeah," said the first voice, "but you made it sound like it was just going to explode or something, not turn into people."

"I'm not convinced that is an improvement," said the disapproving voice. "Look at them. They're obviously divine in nature. That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Well, it did," said a new voice. This one was more resonant than either of the first two, and it didn't sound disapproving at all. It sounded warm and kind, and the two frightened new gods instinctively turned towards it.

What they saw was another like themselves - a god, masculine in form, tall and strong-looking, with a rugged handsome face. His warm eyes looked kindly down on them.

"It's okay," he told them. "There's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe here with us."

"It's not okay," said the disapproving one. Now that they were looking, the twins could see that it was another god, this one smaller and more delicate than the one nearest to them, with silver hair and piercing green eyes. "I told you from the start, Gora, creating anything this way was a mistake. You should destroy them now, before they have a chance to start making trouble."

The twins cringed. They had been so happy inside their starry egg. They just wanted to go back to it. They didn't know what was going on or how they had managed to transgress so far that people wanted to destroy them before they had even done anything, and they were terrified.

"Nobody is destroying anything, Kinshiro," said the one called Gora flatly. "I didn't mean to create Yumoto or you or En, and you all turned out all right. Why should I destroy these two just because they were an accident?"

"Because they're all wrong," said Kinshiro. "Look at them. What are they even for? They have everything going on in them at once. What would they even do? They might do anything!"

"And you can't have that, can you?" drawled a voice. This was a fourth god, leaning lazily against one of the stones that were scattered about. He was blond and shaggy-haired, with drowsy blue eyes. "I swear, you'd campaign for destroying me if you thought you could get away with it."

"Shut up, En," said Kinshiro. "I may not entirely approve of your behavior, but I'm willing to admit that you perform a useful function in the universe. What on earth could these two do?"

"That's for me to figure out," said Gora.

"Forgive me for saying so, my lord, but it isn't," said Kinshiro. "You created me to put the universe in order. My work is to find a place for everything you created, and so far, I've done it, haven't I? I put the fish in the sea and the birds in the air and the stars in the sky and arranged everything so it would work, and I'm telling you now that there is no one place suited to these two. They fit everywhere and nowhere. They're a walking contradiction. Destroy them, before they destabilize the universe and undo all our hard work."

"If they fit equally well everywhere," said Gora mildly, "then it doesn't matter where I put them, does it?"

Kinshiro scowled. "That isn't how it works and you know it."

Gora ignored him. He turned back to the twins and smiled. "It's all right, you two. Kinshiro doesn't mean it, not really. He's just an old grouch."

"You aren't going to destroy us?" asked one of the twins, the one who had first reached through the egg.

"Of course I'm not going to destroy you," said Gora. "I created you because I wanted to see how you would turn out, and I'm not going to wipe you out of existence just because you turned out to be something unexpected. Here."

He reached into nowhere in particular and produced a pair of loose garments, which he helped them to pull on. Their movements were clumsy - they had never needed clothing before, and weren't entirely sure what it was for, but they were cold and frightened and being dressed somehow made them feel better.

"There, that's more like it," said Gora, stepping back to study them. "Do you two know your names?"

The two of them thought about it a moment. Names had not been something they had needed when it had only been the two of them in all the universe, and all that was ever needed was "me" and "him", but now that they thought about it, they realized that they did know.

"Akihiko," said the one who had hatched first.

"Haruhiko," said the other.

"So be it, then," said Gora. "Don't worry, you two. I'm going to look after you from now on, and make sure you find someplace safe. All right?"

The two of them nodded eagerly. They may not have understood much yet, but they understood that in all the universe, there was only one person who was on their side, and it was this kind, handsome man called Gora.

And now, looking up at him smiling down on them, they knew that they would do anything he wanted them to do.

* * *

Katari was in a rare uninspired mood.

That ought not to have been possible. After all, he was the god of poetry - inspiration was what he _did_ \- but somehow it was happening anyway. Every verse he tried to compose felt flat and uninteresting. When he tried to sit down and write, he found himself chewing his pen and staring out the window instead of working. He knew from experience that when he was in this sort of mood, it was no good his trying to go down to earth and do his job. If he couldn't inspire himself, nothing he tried was going to inspire any human beings to write poetry, and anyone he motivated to try reciting it would stumble over their lines or read them out in a monotone. Knowing that just made him more frustrated and blocked his creativity even more.

He knew what was wrong, of course. It was that Akoya, that insufferable god Pearlite, who had put him in this mood. Gods were inveterate gossips, and by now everyone in the Heavenly City knew what had transpired in the lesser parlor last night. People sniggered at him when he walked past them. It would pass, of course - it always did - but for now, it was unbearable, and the fact that it was happening to _him_ and not some lesser god was enough to make him want to tear his hair out. He was the god of poetry. He was supposed to be aloof, dignified, unapproachable. People weren't supposed to catch him making a fool of himself and laugh at him.

And what was really driving him up the wall was that he _knew_ he had made a fool of himself. The anonymous heckler had been right about one thing - he _had_ walked straight into the trap Akoya had laid for him. He had known all along that he had never loved Akoya. From this distance, he could admit that his attempt to woo the new god of beauty had been motivated more out of interest in the ideals Akoya represented than in the man himself. Katari had been dreaming of what he could do if he'd allied himself to the embodiment of pure beauty. What wonderful things might he not create if he had Akoya's help doing it? But if he were being honest with himself, he would have had to admit that the man's personality did not suit him particularly, and while he was remarkably lovely, he wasn't entirely to Katari's taste. There was, he thought, such a thing as being _too_ pretty. A poet like him preferred a few flaws to add poignancy. No, he never would have been happy married to Akoya.

What annoyed him was the fact that Akoya had chosen Ryuu and Io as his consorts. As far as Katari was concerned, those were the lowest of low choices. Io was purely mercenary, and cared for nothing as long as his coffers were full. As for Ryuu... well, everyone knew about Ryuu. And yet, Akoya clearly doted on both of them. The way they carried on - right out in public sometimes - was absolutely shameful. And the fact that he went right on making himself out to be an arbiter of good taste...

 _He's only a god by technicality, anyway. He was born human and he still thinks like a human. Why should any of us have to listen to what he has to say?_

No, he really couldn't stomach Akoya, and it got worse every day. Akoya had too much confidence in himself, too much cleverness, and too many friends. Most people, Katari thought, found poetry daunting, feeling that it was something only for pure intellectuals, but it didn't take a lot of brains to appreciate Akoya when he conjured up a rainbow or a bed of pretty flowers. As far as most of the other gods were concerned, Akoya was technically Katari's superior, in the way the goddess of water was the superior of the various deities of lakes and rivers. If Akoya were to command Katari, Katari was expected to obey. It was intolerable on every level.

 _There has to be a way to take him down a peg._

Katari sat back in his chair and gnawed the end of his pen some more. He tried to think of some course of action, some stratagem that would bring down Akoya's reputation, but nothing would come to him except a few verses of old ballads about vengeance. That was, he reflected, the problem of working outside his realm of influence. He wasn't so good at coming up with courses of action as he was at writing down the actions afterwards in a suitable meter. After spending several minutes pummeling his brain for ideas, he had to admit that he was coming up empty.

 _But I'm not giving up. Hm..._

After a bit more cogitation, he finally stood up. The motion disarranged the papers on his cluttered desk, and several of them slid to the floor. Like most gods, he lived in a room that adjusted itself to his needs and desires. That meant that a large portion of what would be the living room in most homes was taken up by a small stage, suitable for him to get up and deliver an impromptu recital should the opportunity present itself. The walls were mostly lined with shelves that were either filled with completed efforts or stacked with reams of blank paper, bottles of ink, and fresh pens of every variety from simple quills to beautiful glass creations, depending on whether he was intending to simply jot down some notes or compose a sweeping epic. Even the walls were covered in detachable sheets of paper, so he could scribble on them if an idea should suddenly seize him. Most of the time he liked them, but today the amount of unfilled space on them annoyed him. He needed ideas. Why wouldn't any come to him?

Frustrated, he vanished from the Heavenly City entirely and deposited himself on the earthly plane. He sighed a little with relief as he appeared in one of his favorite places: the rafters of a grand old recital hall that had been around almost as long as he had. It had been the great hall of a warlord eons ago, but these days it was used only by poets, actors, and musicians. The triumph of culture over violence always soothed him. Many of his favorite devotees, over the years, had given readings here to packed audiences.

But he wasn't there today to enjoy the fruits of his labors. He had decided to come here to do something he very rarely did: to ask for help. It was clear to him that he could not leave the situation between himself and Akoya the way it was, and equally clear the he couldn't ask anyone Above or Below to help him. Too many gods were Akoya's friends and admirers, and too many of them were too fond of Ryuu and the things he could offer them to get on his bad side. By the same token, no one in the underworld wanted to earn Io's enmity - he was too powerful, and after the way he had distinguished himself in the Chaos Wars, too many people felt that they owed their lives or their afterlives to his bravery, generosity, and clear thinking. That left only one option: to seek the help of a mortal. True, mortals weren't as powerful as gods, but they were also less limited in their thinking, and surprisingly willing to work against the gods if the right situation presented itself. It was somewhat mystifying, really. All of them had to know that when their lives were over, every last one of them would be judged by Aurite and nothing could be hid from him or excused to him. And yet, even knowing that, they frequently went blithely about their lives lying, cheating, stealing, and generally getting themselves into trouble. It had always been a mystery, even to someone like Katari who cared more about rhyme and scansion than morals, but today it might be some help to him. If he could just find the right mortal to ask...

Meanwhile, a universe away, in the depths of the Abyss, Aki stood preening in front of a black mirror. He had to admit, he didn't approve of most of the changes that had taken place during the centuries he and Haru had slept, but it seemed that fashion had come a long way. He had been happy enough to abandon the simple togas worn by gods in the old days for something with a little more flair. He and Haru had chosen new colors for themselves - black to show that they were allied with the denizens of darkness, yes, but also in mockery of Aurite, who affected the color himself as a show of austerity. To complete the mockery, they had also chosen the brightest, most eye-dazzling shade of pink they could come up with. They would be gods of darkness, yes, but they were going to be flamboyant and eye-catching about it. The spotlight was going to be on them from now on, and they wanted everyone to know about it.

"I think this is going to work out nicely, don't you?" he asked his brother.

"We've made a good start," Haru agreed. "That little rosy-cheeked human we picked up last night was a good choice. He's so eager to be thought important that he'll fall all over himself to do our bidding, but he's not bright enough to stop and think too much about what he's doing."

Aki nodded. "On the other hand, it's a good thing we won't have to put up with him for long. I think I'm going to get very tired of having to do all the thinking for him."

"We'll manage," said Haru. "Just a few weeks, on the outside, and then we can start all over with something more pleasant."

"Start over how, exactly?" asked Dadacha. He was perched on one of the dressers that the twins had conjured up to furnish their new living quarters. They had never been to the Abyss before, and had not been terribly impressed by it once they visited it. The place seemed to consist almost entirely of black rock, through which the occasional black river flowed, and lots of black shadows through which dark things crept. Dadacha had showed them to the particular little grotto he inhabited. It hadn't been much more than a crack in the wall, barely big enough for the three of them to sit down in, but the twins had taken care of that. A little exercise of power, and the place had expanded into a pleasant suite of rooms - bedroom, dining room, sitting room, bath. They were in the new bedroom now, relaxing after their efforts and plotting their next move.

"Don't you worry your furry little head about it," said Haru airily. "We aren't planning on destroying you any time soon."

"Keep up the good work and we won't do it at all," said Aki. He was, in spite of himself, starting to like the little furry creature. It took a certain amount of audacity to come up with this sort of plan - an imp allying himself to gods of their sort. He could respect that. As long as it stayed loyal to him and his brother, he saw no reason why they shouldn't keep Dadacha around indefinitely. It wouldn't exactly interfere with their original plan. Or, for that matter, the new plans he had begun to think about after he'd learned a bit of what had transpired in their absence.

"But what exactly are you planning?" Dadacha asked.

The twins exchanged a brief look, asking each other, _Do we tell him?_

The answer, it turned out was, _No, not yet._

"Just what you suggested," said Aki. "Revolution. Escaping the old order of the gods. Stick with us, and you'll never have to worry about them again."

"Well, that will be nice," said Dadacha. "So what do we do next?"

Haru leaned back on the new bed they'd created for themselves, clutching a pillow to his chest and staring up at the ceiling.

"We have the mortal part of the plan pretty well underway," he said, "but we still need an 'in' with the celestial gods."

"Come again?" Dadacha asked.

"Our plan involves, in part, overcoming the gods from the inside," Aki explained. "We need someone to act as our operative - a disgruntled crossroads god, an attendant tired of being pushed around, something like that. Someone who can get into the Heavenly City and run a little errand for us."

"Hmm," said Dadacha, thoughtfully grooming his whiskers. "That's a tall order, but I'll see what I can come up with."

Aki turned away from his mirror. "You think you can find someone like that?"

"I can try," said Dadacha. "We demons are good at finding disgruntled people. It's a knack. If any of the gods are in that sort of mood, I'll sniff them out, you can be sure of that."

Aki smiled. "Good. It seems we did well in allying with you, after all."

He held out a hand, and Dadacha bounded onto his sleeve and scampered up to his shoulder. Aki reached up a hand to stroke the creature's downy soft fur. Dadacha practically purred. Demons, it seemed, didn't often find opportunities for someone to scratch behind their ears.

"Mm, that's nice," the little imp crooned. He shook himself, settling his fur back in place. "Don't worry - you can count on me!"

"Try not to be too long about it," said Haru. "We need to get as much done as possible, as fast as possible, before any of the other gods notices we've broken free."

Dadacha nodded his understanding. Then he threw himself at the mirror, passed straight through it, and was gone.

"Industrious little creature," Haru noted. "I wonder if he can really deliver."

Aki shrugged. "Can't hurt to let him try." He went back to admiring himself in the mirror. "In the meantime, let's go over what we've learned. I'm starting to get some ideas. You remember what he told us about some of these new gods? I'm speaking specifically about the new Lord of the Blessed Dead. Something in that story gave me an interesting thought..."

The two of them continued chatting with each other, refining their plans. They had come to some very satisfactory conclusions by the time Dadacha finally returned, tail fluffed with pride.

"You'll never guess what I found!" was his exuberant greeting.

"What we asked for, I hope," said Haru.

"Even better than you asked," said Dadacha. "What would you say if I said I'd found a major god who looks like he'd suit your purposes?"

The twins looked at each other.

"It's risky," said Haru.

"But it has potential," Aki countered. "The more important the god, the more likely it is that he can do what we need him to do and get away with it."

Haru grimace. "Or he'll do something stupid and get himself caught. Or he'll run straight to Aurite and tell him we're here, and we'll be back under those stupid pillars again quicker than we can say 'sunset'."

"Then we need to make sure he knows it's worth his while not to tattle on us," Aki countered. He turned to Dadacha. "So tell us about this god you've found. What makes you think he's a suitable prospect?"

"You don't know him, I wouldn't think," said Dadacha obediently. "His name is Katari. He's the god of poetry and recitals. He wasn't created until after you were sealed, so odds are he doesn't know much about you and won't recognize you when he sees you."

Aki nodded. "So he's not a major power and doesn't have a lot of offensive strength, but he's still probably important enough to be allowed to live in the Palace of the Gods."

"You've got it," said Dadacha. "And right now he's in a tizzy because the god of beauty apparently insulted him, and he's still stinging over it. He wants to get even, but he can't figure out how."

Haru grinned. "Excellent. That's just the kind of thing I was hoping to hear."

Aki glanced to his brother. "That sounds like just the sort of situation you're best equipped to deal with. Why don't you go take this one? I'll just have a chat with our helpful little friend here and get him filled in on our new plans."

"I'm on it," said Haru. "Back in a bit."

He vanished in a swirl of golden light and a scent of oranges and spice. Dadacha stared at the place where Haru had been a moment, then turned his huge eyes back to Aki.

"So," he said, "what's this about a new plan?"


	3. The Axe of Fate

Haru reappeared in a back alley, and paused a moment to get his bearings. He had been following the energy traces left by Dadacha. That was not a difficult thing for someone of his abilities, but still something that required a bit of precision if he didn't want to lose such a faint trace as a minor demon left. He had to admit, he liked the way cities had come on almost as much as Aki liked the evolution of fashion. When he had first stepped into existence, most villages hadn't been much more than a collection of mud huts or heaps of sticks with hide stretched over them. These substantial things of beautifully carved stone or cleanly sanded wood suited his aesthetic much better. He was going to have to keep all that in mind when his plans finally came to fruition.

 _Someday we'll be able to arrange a universe of our own,_ he told himself, _but it doesn't hurt to take a good look at what everyone else has been doing first, to get some new ideas._

The largest and grandest of the nearby buildings was another new innovation, something called a theater, where people put on performances. He had been impressed by the idea of performing, too. He and Aki had paused long enough in Akoya's city after they had claimed their first priest to take in a play and a few musical recitals, and had been immensely impressed at how far humanity had come in a few centuries. He had the idea that he wouldn't mind learning to play some of those instruments. One of the fortunate side-effects of being made of sound and silence was that both twins had a fine sense of rhythm and pleasant singing voices. Surely they ought to be able to manage instruments as well.

But that was a project for later, and right now, he needed to find one of the gods responsible for these productions. He approached the theater, sized it up, and let himself in through one of the walls. That was one of the nice things about being a god, after all - never having to worry about whether or not a building was locked up for the day.

It didn't take long to track down the god he was looking for. There was, after all, only one in the building - an entity in the form of a young man with longish red-brown hair and an intense expression. He seemed to be in an agitated state, pacing up and down one of the aisles, muttering to himself. Haru caught the words "revenge," "plan," and "has to be _somebody_ ," and assumed that he'd found the right deity.

"Can I help you?" he asked in his sweetest tones.

Katari jumped and looked around wildly.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" he demanded. Then his gaze fell on Haru and his eyes narrowed. "How did you even see me?"

Haru smiled. "Can't you guess? I'm a god too."

Katari's mouth pursed. "You're no god I've ever seen before."

"Well, no," said Haru. "You see, I'm the sun god. I don't get down from my perch very often - don't do much mingling with you little terrestrial gods. But you can take my word for it, I'm definitely a god."

"So what are you doing, if you don't usually come down here?" Katari asked.

It was time for a bluff. "Well, I couldn't help but notice that you seem to be feuding with Akoya these last few days," he said smoothly. "And since I'm not all that fond of him myself, I thought perhaps we could talk."

"What does the god of the sun need with Akoya?" Katari asked, but Haru could see that he was interested. "I should think that you'd be happy to deal with the god of springtime."

"Well, that's just it," said Haru, seizing on the cue. "Before he came along, warming the earth was _my_ job. Now he's come along and no one even remembers I exist anymore. They give him all the credit. It's downright intolerable, don't you think?"

"Oh, certainly, I can see that," said Katari. Clearly Haru had said the right thing. A glitter had come into Katari's eyes that hadn't been there before.

"So what I was thinking," said Haru, "was that perhaps we could work together towards a mutually beneficial goal."

"What did you have in mind?" Katari asked.

"Just a little prank, that's all," said Haru. "Something to embarrass Akoya and take him down a peg."

Katari nodded. "That's exactly what I want. What kind of prank, exactly?"

Haru hesitated for just a beat, barely more than a split-second, while he selected his words. This was going to be the delicate part.

"Well, you see," he said, "Akoya is a peculiar sort of god, isn't he? Hardly a real god at all. More of a human, really, playing pretend."

"That's just how I've always seen it," said Katari.

"Even so," said Haru. "So what I was thinking is that we need to remind everyone of just how weak that makes him. We need to take advantage of that inherent fragility."

"And how do we do that?" Katari asked eagerly.

"We reverse the process," Haru lied smoothly. "The only reason he's immortal now is because Fate cut the strings of his mortality, yes? Well, we can re-attach those strings again. Not forever, of course - just for a little while, an hour or so, just enough to give him a little reminder that he isn't all he makes himself out to be."

"Can we do that?" Katari asked.

"We can," said Haru. "At least, I know how. What I don't have is the means to do it, and that's where you come in."

"What can I do?" Katari asked. "That isn't part of my skill set. If you wanted me to write a comic poem about him, that would be one thing, but..."

"Oh, it can be done," said Haru. "All we need is the right tools. The trouble is, the object we need to get the job done is in the Palace of the Gods, and I'm an unfamiliar face there. If I went there, everyone would notice, and they'd all connect me to anything strange that happened there. But you, you're welcome and respected. No one would ever guess that you were connected with our little joke."

Katari frowned. "I don't know... I don't want to get myself in trouble, not even for Akoya's sake..."

Haru resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Stiff-necked idiot. It was just Haru's luck to have to deal with a god who was so worried about his reputation that he'd pass up a prime opportunity to get even with his rival when it was handed to him on a silver platter.

But that sort of eventuality was just the reason why Haru had been chosen for this job in the first place. He reached inside for the warmth of his power and pushed a thread of it towards Katari. Haru's power was the heat of the sun, the fire of passion, and just now, he used a touch of that power to heat Katari's resentment and anger to the boiling point.

"That's the wrong way to think," he said persuasively. "Think of that preening peacock Akoya. Think of the other gods admiring his beauty and overlooking your finer spirit and intellect. Think of everyone clamoring for his opinions while they ignore your talent entirely. Think of how it feels to be ignored in the face of such banality. Think of how good it will feel to finally see him put in his place."

It was working - Haru could see that. Even as he spoke, he could see Katari's shoulders begin to tense, an angry flush rise in his face, his hands begin to tremble, his breath come in harsh gasps.

"Yes," he ground out. "That's right. Akoya has to be put in his place."

"And you'll do anything to make that happen, won't you?" Haru persisted.

"Anything," said Katari hoarsely.

Haru smiled. "Good. Then all I need from you is one small thing..."

* * *

"Kinshiro," said a voice outside the door, "may I have a word with you?"

Kinshiro looked up from his desk in surprise. Up until that moment, he had been enmeshed in one of his favorite pastimes: paperwork. In practical terms, he should never have had to do any paperwork at all. He had more than enough attendants to do any amount of paperwork, and who would have been happy enough to do it all if he'd asked it of them. If Kinshiro had wanted to, he could have put it all behind him and spent all his free time relaxing, reading, frolicking with his consort, and generally amusing himself. But he liked the sense of filling in blanks, bringing completion to the incomplete and organization to the chaotic, so he did it himself anyway. Left to his own devices, he would have gone right on doing it for the rest of the afternoon.

But not with the person outside his door asking for his attention. Normally Kinshiro would have shunted off unwanted visitors to Arima or one of his attendants, but when Fate himself turned up outside your door wanting a word, it was a good idea to give him one.

"Of course, my lord," he said respectfully, rising from his desk. He hurried to open the door. Sure enough, there was Gora standing on his doorstep, looking mildly perturbed. That was surprising, and a bit disturbing. It had been a few days since Kinshiro had last seen Gora - he had been away from the Heavenly City, pursuing his own agenda. That was nothing unusual, since it had only been recently that he'd started spending any time at all around the City on a regular basis, but it had worried Kinshiro a little that he'd vanished just after strange things had started happening. Not that anything else strange had happened recently, but there had been an uneasy sense in the air. Kinshiro had been relieved when Gora and Yumoto had reappeared at lunch that day, taking it as a sign that things might be getting back to normal, but if Gora needed to talk now...

"You know," said Gora, "you don't actually have to keep using that 'my lord' nonsense. It's archaic, and anyway, it's stupid for a god to have to call anyone 'lord'."

"It's respectful," said Kinshiro. He stepped aside, gesturing for Gora to step into his office. "What can I do for you? Is this business, or a social call?"

"Business," said Gora. "Don't worry. I'll make this quick. I just need you to do me a small favor."

"What kind of favor?" Kinshiro asked. He found himself intrigued. As far as he knew, there wasn't much that Gora couldn't do for himself if he put his mind to it, or if he couldn't, Yumoto probably could.

"Someone has stolen my axe," said Gora.

Kinshiro stared a moment.

"I think," he said, "we had better go over this sitting down."

Gora shrugged and ambled over to Kinshiro's desk, sitting down at the chair across from Kinshiro's own. Kinshiro returned to his own seat, and, more out of habit than anything, poured them both a cup of tea from the bottomless pot he kept there.

"Now," he said, "run that by me again. Someone has stolen your axe. You mean...?"

"My golden axe," Gora elaborated. "Not the one I use to cut firewood, but the other one. The magic one."

"I know the one you're talking about," Kinshiro asked. "How could something like that happen?"

"Pretty easily," said Gora. "I take it with me pretty much everywhere when I'm in the Heavenly City. I had it stashed under my chair at lunch today. If I was busy eating, anyone could have swiped it just by bending down and pretending to pick up a dropped fork or tighten their sandal or something."

Kinshiro pressed his lips together, restraining himself from delivering a lecture. It wasn't his place to criticize the lord of all creation, but really, couldn't Gora take a little bit better care of his things? Bad enough when he'd let the Water of Life get stolen by an overambitious wizard...

"So how bad is this, exactly?" he asked instead. "I mean, just what can this axe of yours do?"

Gora ran a hand through his hair. "Well, it's an axe. It would hurt a lot if someone hit you with it."

"So, it isn't going to bring about the end of the world if someone misuses it?" Kinshiro persisted.

"No. I mean, probably not," said Gora. "That's why I'm not too worried about losing it. It's not something inherently dangerous - not much more than any other weapon. It's only a focus for my own power, not the source. So in the hands of a mortal or one of the minor gods, it probably can't do very much more than any other axe. If a powerful god like you tried to use it... well, for example, you might use it to cut off avenues of escape for evildoers. Someone like Ryuu could use it to cut away distractions that are keeping someone from noticing their true love. What it can do depends on who's holding it."

"All right," said Kinshiro. "In that case, the question is, is there anyone in the universe who would be capable of using that axe to do something really destructive?"

"On the scale you're thinking of?" said Gora. He thought about it. "I could use it to destroy pretty much anything. Maybe Yumoto could, if he really put his mind to it. I don't think there's anyone else active today who has that kind of power."

"So this is a problem, but not a major emergency," Kinshiro summed up. "That's a relief, at any rate."

Gora nodded. "It's a useful tool, and I want it back, but I can make another one if I need to. I just don't like the idea of someone stealing from me."

"Entirely understandable," Kinshiro agreed. "Don't worry, I'll track it down for you. I'll be very surprised if you don't have it back in your hands by tomorrow at the latest."

"Thanks. That's a load off my mind," said Gora. "I can still do my job without it, but it will be more difficult. Not having the right tools slows me down."

"Hopefully nothing too pressing will come up between now and then," said Kinshiro. He rather doubted that any such thing was likely to happen, though. Fate was a reclusive sort. He rarely interfered directly in the lives of gods and mortals. Most of the time, he seemed to prefer hanging around his bathhouse, pretending to be an ordinary human being and watching the universe to see what it would do next. Presumably he would have no trouble doing that without his axe to help him.

Gora smiled crookedly. "I'll try to arrange matters so it doesn't. Thanks, Kinshiro. I know I can count on you."

Kinshiro bowed his head. "I'll do my best. You'll hear the minute I find out something."

Gora thanked him and wandered out of the room again, his mind apparently already on other things. Kinshiro frowned a little, drumming his fingers on the table.

 _What sort of idiot would steal from Fate?_ He was to the other gods what gods were to mortals. No one in their right mind ought to do something so foolish. And yet, Kinshiro had no doubt that they had. For all Gora maintained a laid-back attitude, Kinshiro didn't think he was the type to simply _lose_ his most important tool.

Well, Kinshiro would have the answer to his question soon enough. He was the god of justice, and he could sniff out a lawbreaker faster than Akoya could sniff out a new perfume. Whoever had stolen that axe, it had to be someone within the confines of the Heavenly City, and that was a relatively limited number. If Kinshiro could pick out criminals among all the humans of earth, he could find one in this small city. There was nothing to worry about.

After all, it was like Gora said - no one could do anything _really_ bad with it.

* * *

Atsushi had spent the last few days in a contemplative mood. Kinshiro had assured him that he didn't need to worry about whatever it was that had knocked the other three of them for a loop the other day, but it wasn't in Atsushi's nature to simply not worry. Something had hurt his beloved husband and two of his best friends, possibly more, and he'd be blighted if he let whatever-it-was get away with it. Unfortunately, Atsushi was one of the least violent gods in the pantheon, so his options for punishing people were perforce limited. Still, he did have a few things he could try, if he was willing to get creative. With that in mind, he had at last wandered into his own private library and went to fetch a particular book.

Every god had their unique tools - some used constantly, others saved for a state of dire emergency. Kinshiro had his golden arrows, Akoya had his blessed sword, Fate had his axe. Atsushi, more a thinker than a fighter, had a book. _Inquiry_ had been a wedding present from Fate himself, and it was one of the most valuable weapons in his arsenal, used not so often for fighting as for obtaining information. All he needed to do was concentrate on the problem at hand, open the book, and read whatever it told him. The catch was that his book rarely gave him a straight answer. It was all too common that he would be trying to find a way to halt an international incident, and open the book to find a scrap of a fairy tale or someone's recipe for berry cobbler. Nevertheless, he had learned that anything his book turned up would always be relevant, though it sometimes took some creative thinking to figure out exactly how. Still, when what Atsushi wanted was a clue where to start, _Inquiry_ was always a good place to look. Now he looked down at its unassuming brown leather cover and concentrated as hard as he could.

 _How do I find out what hurt my friends?_

He took a breath, closed his eyes, and flipped the book open to a random page, feeling the smooth paper riffle beneath his fingers. Something in him said suddenly, _Stop._ He opened his eyes and looked down at what he'd found.

It appeared to be a diary entry. There was a date written at the top of the page: Third day, Earth Moon, 1347 F.E. - a thousand years, three centuries, and forty-seven years after the fall of the last great empire. More to the point, it had apparently been written two days ago. It began in a firm, controlled hand, _I got another rejection letter today..._ The last word tailed off into a scrawl, and there was a short gap between lines. When the handwriting picked up again, it was looser, faster, more frantic. _I hate it here. I hate the snow, I hate the rocks, I hate seeing the same faces every day, I hate never getting to go anywhere or see anything, I hate being rejected. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. All I've ever wanted is to be an artist. Why won't anyone give me a chance? I could be good enough, if I could actually find anything to draw. All there is to look at around here is gray mountains and gray snow and gray houses and gray weeds and gray people. Even the reindeer are gray. Maybe I should just start coloring all my paper solid gray and be done with it..._

Atsushi frowned. The despair and frustration were almost palpable, but he didn't get the impression that this was the writing of someone who was capable of doing something so horrible that it left even the gods sick and reeling. He was just a frustrated artist, heartsick at being unable to find a patron and support himself with his work - ordinarily the sort of person Atsushi would have gone out of his way to help, but not apparently connected to the problem at hand. Still, there had to be a reason why _Inquiry_ had chosen to show him this particular scrap of writing.

"An artist," he murmured aloud. He let himself dwell on that idea for a moment, waiting for an idea to strike him. Eventually, he murmured, "Well, and why not? It's worth a shot."

Atsushi tucked the book carefully and respectfully back into its niche. Then, with no more than an effort of will, he disappeared.

* * *

"Masuya, I'm home!"

Kou Kinosaki let himself into the cozy little cottage he and his husband occupied, dumping an armload of papers onto the hall table. As far as luxury went, this place wasn't much - just a snug little building with a bedroom, a kitchen, a parlor, a bath, and a shed tacked onto the back where Kou could keep his printing press and Masuya could stash his easel and paints. From the front door, it was possible to see into all four rooms if the other doors were open. Since Kou couldn't see any sign of his husband, that could only mean that he was still where he usually was: sitting on a stool in the shed, drawing away.

"It would be nice," Kou said to the empty air, "to come home to a husband who was waiting for me, maybe making dinner or something."

He wasn't really annoyed, though. If there was one thing he believed, it was that Masuya was a true artist. Kou had his passion for dredging up information, but his husband's passion was for capturing the world on paper or canvas, and he was very, very good at it. He spent at least part of his time drawing the people and places of his city, turning them into printer's blocks that could be used to illustrate Kou's bi-weekly newspaper. On rare occasions, he would even be hired by some wealthy patron to paint a portrait of a family member or a picture of someone's childhood home. The rest of the time, he simply pursued whatever subjects caught his fancy. Kou suspected that Masuya would be happier if he could do that sort of work full time. After all, the paper had to go out on a deadline, which meant illustrations had to be done in a hurry, and their resources for printing were crude enough that it was impossible to print pictures in very much detail. If Masuya illustrated something, he had to do it in broad strokes. He was better than that. He could render images in such detail and liveliness that they almost seemed to breathe. Not only that, but he had an artist's flair for enhancing the world around him, and having to only sketch things that actually existed exactly the way they appeared cramped his style. He really did need the freedom to follow his own muse.

If it had been up to Kou, that's exactly what he would have done all the time. Unfortunately, their primary source of income was the newspaper, and it was just barely keeping them afloat. They had enough money to cover their basic needs, pay for Masuya's art supplies, and not a whole lot else. Kou doubted that the paper would sell any better if it had no illustrations, and so Masuya kept at the drudge work, and did it uncomplainingly. Kou was willing to grant him some leeway on matters like making dinner.

Kou wandered out to the back room and found his husband just where he'd expected to be: seated in front of an easel, one brush in his hand, another clamped between his lips, and a pallette in his hands. When he saw Kou, though, he immediately dumped everything he was holding onto the crate that was serving him as a table and beamed at his beloved.

"You're back," he said, eyes shining with warmth.

Kou felt himself smiling. Anyone else making such an inane statement to him would have gotten a sarcastic statement in return, but Masuya wasn't just anyone. True, he wasn't everyone's idea of the ideal husband. He wasn't the most gorgeous man in the world, and he was not what most people would have called particularly brilliant or witty. In fact, he rarely spoke at all if he could help it - he was as clumsy with words as he was skilled with images. Still, he was kind and loyal and generous, and in the habit of giving long, slow, knee-weakening kisses. For that, Kou was willing to do all the talking for both of them. You would, he thought, have to go a long way to find another man as good as Masuya, and Kou was determined to hang on to what he had. Now he leaned forward to press his lips to his husband's, and felt Masuya reach up to twine his long, clever fingers through Kou's hair.

"Missed you," said Masuya, when they pulled apart. "Have a good day?"

"Good enough," said Kou. He'd been out selling papers today, in between collecting whatever scraps of news and gossip he thought he could incorporate into his next issue. There was a conundrum: if he didn't sell enough papers, he wouldn't have the money to print another issue, but if he spent too much time selling papers, he wouldn't have enough time to collect news for another issue.

 _What a life._ He hated to ask Masuya to take time away from his own work to go out and hawk papers. For one thing, he sometimes forgot to actually use words, leading to him standing mutely and a little intimidatingly on street corners, holding stacks of paper and staring at people. Well, maybe he could sell a few of his completed works. There wasn't a lot of market for them around here, but when they _did_ sell, they usually brought in a hefty enough price to keep them afloat for a week or two.

 _Or maybe..._

No, he didn't dare to hope for that. He'd just have to figure something out. He was clever. He knew he could do it if he put his mind to it.

"Going to be at that much longer?" he asked, turning to inspect the painting Masuya had been working on. It was hard to tell at this point, but it seemed to be a rather dramatic depiction of Pearlite ascending to godhood. Not really Kou's favorite subject matter, but he had to admit that Masuya could probably pull it off.

"A while," was Masuya's predictably laconic reply.

"I'll start dinner, then," Kou replied.

He gave his beloved one last peck on the cheek and started back into the main part of the house. However, he'd barely even made it into the kitchen (and what was he going to cook, anyway? Neither of them had found time or money to do the shopping yet) when he heard a knock on the door. His heart rate picked up.

 _I said I wouldn't hope. Maybe it's just someone with news. That's probably what it is._

Even so, his pulse was still pounding when he went to answer the door.

And there he was: just the man Kou had been hoping and praying to see. Not that he looked like anything special. He appeared to be a fairly average middle-aged man, well-preserved, with a touch of distinguished gray at the temples and smile lines around his eyes. He was good looking in a "nothing actually wrong with him" sort of way, without having any particularly outstanding features, except perhaps for his unusually long eyelashes. He dressed like a well-to-do merchant - not wearing anything flashy, but everything of precise cut and made of good materials. Kou didn't know who he was. There was no merchant or noble matching his description in this town or any of the towns nearby. The man had never offered a name, and Kou, after a few tries at weaseling it out of him, had realized that he probably didn't really want to know.

The thing was, Kou's life was strange. He had accepted that a long time ago. He had come to terms with the fact that whenever his ambition and curiosity led him a little too close to the border of what was socially acceptable, he'd start having peculiarly realistic dreams in which he was living lives that had nothing to do with the one he had now, lives in which he was a wizard in a royal castle or a dark being dwelling in the depths of the Abyss. He had even gotten used to the idea that occasionally imps would show up in his workshop. Most of the time it was the talking goldfish, rearing up out of his water barrel to remind him that he was, in fact, the reincarnation of an ancient demon lord, and could be one again if he so chose. Kou usually threw printer's blocks at him until he went away, or just slammed the lid down on the barrel. The irritating little hedgehog was harder to get rid of, but he usually left after Kou had explained to him, again, that Kou loved his job and loved his husband and had no interest in taking up a career that meant every god in the heavens would be out for his hide.

And then there was this man, the man with no name who radiated warmth and kindness, who always showed up just when Kou needed him most, always ready with help that came in a form that couldn't easily be explained away as charity. He had to be a god - Kou was sure of that - but exactly which one he was or why he took such an interest in making Kou's life easier was a mystery he did not care to explore too deeply. He didn't care whether it was because this entity was genuinely kindly disposed towards him, or whether he wanted to eliminate the possibility of a demon re-emerging. He just wanted to make sure the god never _stopped_ showing up and left him the lurch.

"Ah, good evening, sir," said Kou, trying not to stammer. "It's good to see you again."

The man inclined his head respectfully. "Mr. Kinosaki, I hope you're keeping well."

"Tolerably well," Kou agreed. "Please, come inside. Can I get you anything? A cup of tea, maybe? I was just about to start dinner... you're welcome to stay..."

"No, no, I'm just passing through," the man assured him. "I just wanted to ask if you were possibly available to take on a job for me."

Kou narrowed his eyes. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of a job. He supposed he should have known that sooner or later a god would want repayment for any gifts it had given him.

"I don't know," he said, more or less truthfully. "I'm awfully busy lately. I'm barely selling enough papers to cover expenses as it is, you know."

"I know," said the man, "and I've already taken that into consideration. I'm willing to offer you, say, five hundred gold standards a week, for as long as the job takes."

Kou couldn't stop himself from jerking backwards in surprise. Five hundred gold standards was roughly what he'd paid for this cottage. Even one week of working at that rate would cover his expenses for months. It would give him the wherewithal he'd need to hire some help and really get his business off the ground. He could get someone to take over Masuya's job and free him to paint full time, if only for a year or two, and maybe by then the paper would be well established enough that they wouldn't need their mysterious benefactor's help anymore.

"What kind of job are we talking about?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, that's a bit nebulous," the man replied. "I've been... well, picking up a sense that something _peculiar_ is going on. Something supernatural, something outside the realms of normal human experience, but I can't quite get a fix on it. I want you to look into it. I know you're good at ferreting things out. Nose around, see what you can figure out, and report back to me."

"What if I can't find anything?" Kou asked dubiously. He wasn't sure "I don't know what's going on, but hopefully you'll know it when you see it" sounded like a very good job to him.

"Then you'll still be paid for your time," the man replied. "I know this is a long shot, and you aren't our only avenue for success, but I want to make sure we're trying everything we can."

"Hmm," said Kou.

"I'll pay the first week in advance," the man offered.

That clinched it.

"All right, you've got a deal," said Kou. "Let's see the color of your money."

The man obligingly fished in his pockets and produced a little leather bag, which he passed to Kou. Kou tipped it out on the coffee table, counting out the heap of twenty-standard gold coins. All five hundred were there, glittering like tiny suns. It was the most money he had ever seen in one place in all his life. He couldn't help but take a moment to admire it. He liked to think that he was a man of some principle, but that was more wishful thinking than anything else, and the sight of the money was kindling feelings he mostly liked to pretend he didn't have. He wondered just how long it would take to ferret out this mysterious whatever-it-was. Maybe he would need months to hunt for it. How many of these little heaps of coins could he assemble in that time? Enough to live very comfortably, he thought.

"Any more idea where I should start?" he asked. Might as well make a show of wanting to do the job right.

The man thought. "Something to do with gods, I'm almost certain. I think... I think it may be linked back to Aurite somewhere, if only in a negative way. Someone out there is obsessed with something to such a degree that they're willing to do absolutely anything to get it, and I have an uncomfortable feeling that a lot of unfortunate humans are going to get swept up in its path."

Kou frowned. "Well, that doesn't tell me much, but it's a start. Are you sure that's the best you can do?"

"For now, yes, but I'll keep working on it, and I'll let you know the minute I know more," the man replied. "I'll be checking in on you from time to time - don't worry about trying to get in contact with me."

 _Oh, don't worry. I wasn't going to trouble myself over that,_ Kou thought wryly. No way was he going to start praying to random gods in hope of getting through to the one he wanted.

"Fair enough," he replied. He considered a moment. "Do I get any sort of bonus if I'm actually the first one to find what it is you're looking for? You did say you had other irons in the fire, after all, so I know I have competition."

The man actually laughed. "If that's what it takes to keep you motivated, then yes. Find what we want and I'll see if I can line up a little something extra for you. We'll negotiate more in the event that it actually happens."

"Fair," Kou agreed. Without thinking about it, he held out a hand to shake. It was the first time he'd ever offered to touch this man he was sure was not a man but something a lot scarier underneath.

And yet, when the handshake came, it was as warm and solid as any human handshake. He wondered about that. Maybe whoever this person was, he really was just some eccentric, wealthy man who was interested in furthering worthwhile causes, and thought Kou's newspaper was one of them.

 _Right, and I'm the high priest of Aurite._

"Pleasure doing business with you," was all Kou said aloud.

"Likewise," his benefactor replied. "I hope I'll be hearing from you again soon."

"I hope I'll have something to report," said Kou, not entirely sincerely. Still, he knew he didn't dare dawdle in hopes of wresting more money out of his patron. All that was likely to manage was to make sure that someone else reached the prize first and left him high and dry. Besides, he had his professional pride. His job was to ferret out news, and gods or no gods, if something big was going down he wanted a piece of it.

"In that case, I'll leave you to get to work," said the man. "Goodnight, Mr. Kinosaki."

"Goodnight, Mister..." Kou began, and let the sentence trail off. His peculiar friend was already heading out the door.

"Whew," said Kou, when the strange man was finally gone. "Well, this is going to be interesting, isn't it? Still..." He gazed lovingly down at the small fortune in his living room. He scooped up all the coins and carried them into the kitchen, where he dumped most of them into the flour crock that they used to store their meager savings, setting aside only a single twenty-standard piece. Then he bounded back into the garage.

"Hey, Masuya, put that down for now," he called out. "We've just been hired for a big job."

Masuya looked slightly crestfallen. "But I was so close to being done."

"All right, go ahead and finish," said Kou indulgently. "And then change into your good clothes. Tonight, we're dining out!"

Meanwhile, the mysterious middle-aged man had retreated into the shelter of a nearby grove of trees. Kou and Masuya had chosen to make their dwelling right on the edge of town, even though the gregarious Kou would probably have preferred to be closer to where the action was, but apparently he had chosen to oblige his husband on this point. Or perhaps this was all that he could afford. Either way, it provided a good place to disappear to once certain business transactions were completed. Once the man had moved out of sight of Kou's house, he gave a little sigh of relief. The gray in his hair faded away, the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth vanished, and his simple but elegant clothes morphed into something even more costly.

"Well," said Atsushi, "at least that's something."

* * *

Katari was not a happy god.

He had thought that he was unhappy before. He had thought, in fact, that his life had been intolerable. He had thought that he couldn't possibly stand the way he had been overlooked, maligned, and mistreated without exploding from sheer outrage. Now, though, he knew that all he had been experiencing was mild annoyance. It would have passed, he told himself. He would have gotten over the snub. He'd have been fine the next time one of his devotees had presented a new epic to an admiring audience, and Katari could bask in the swell of admiration that came from the performance. He never should have done all this.

But it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He couldn't quite remember how it was that he had come to be so full of rage and determination. The last few days were overshadowed by a kind of reddish haze, in which he'd grown more and more agitated as he waited for the moment he could act. It was the kind of baffled, frustrated fury that only grew more heated as time passed. He hadn't thought of any consequences beyond how it would feel to look into Akoya's vacuous face when he realized that his godly powers were no longer sustaining him. Age could catch up to him again, he could get sick and feel pain, he could no longer draw power for the turning of the seasons... he'd thought nothing in the world could be sweeter. Now he thought that the best feeling in the world would be if he could put this stupid axe back where he'd found it and set everything back the way it had been.

But it had been so easy. All it had taken was to make sure he sat at the correct place the next time Fate took a meal in the main dining hall. Fate always put his axe next to his chair when he ate, right out in the open where anyone might bend down and grab it. It had taken very little effort for Katari to walk past it, let the hem of his robe trail over the axe and knock it onto its side, out of sight, where he could hook the blade on the strap of his sandal and scoop it up into his hands. The entire maneuver had been hidden by the drape of the tablecloth and by his own body. No one had seen or noticed when he'd caught up his prize and hidden it in the voluminous sleeves of the robe he'd taken care to wear. Luckily for him, he was in the habit of walking about with his hands clasped in front of him and the sleeves of his robe covering them, a posture he'd always thought made him look regal. No one could tell that this time he was hiding his hands because he was also hiding something else.

Now just the weight of the axe, hanging from his belt and hidden beneath his robe, was making him nauseous. He didn't like the feel of it. It wasn't a bad feeling really - this was a blessed axe, after all, used by the greatest of the gods to perform miracles the rest of them could only dream of achieving - but it was a _powerful_ feeling. Small wonder the ruler of the universe tended to spend most of his time chopping wood. This thing just begged to be used, and the temptation to take it up himself and go out into the world to make wonders happen with it was almost too much to resist.

That was what was making him so uncomfortable now. This thing was too powerful, and he was too weak. If he tried to use it for very long, he was sure, it would start using him instead. He never should have touched it, and he definitely never should have dreamed of giving it to someone who claimed to be a god. What had he been thinking? He'd never seen them before in his life. He should have at least asked someone about them, or looked them up in the Great Library. That was what he ordinarily would have done, lover of words that he was. Why had he been so reckless?

 _Something isn't right here._

He fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, running his hands through his shaggy hair. He was standing at the pre-arranged meting site, somewhere at the edge of a forest Katari didn't know the name of. Forests weren't really his cup of tea. The only thing he ever had to do with them was to occasionally send his people into them so that he could inspire them to write about the glories of nature. Matters of cartography had never mattered much. Who cared what a forest was called, when there were odes to write about falling leaves? But now he wished he knew where he was, and why this forest above any others had been chosen, just so he could know a little more about what was going on.

 _Maybe I should just go home._ Yes, that was the right course of action. There were still a few more minutes before the rendezvous was slated to start. He could turn around and go home right now, find Fate, give him his axe back, and promise to never do anything so stupid ever again. He didn't even have to confess. He could just wrap it up and leave it outside Fate's door. Not even Aurite would do more than scold him as long as he corrected his mistake of his own volition. He should leave right now...

A hand reached out of the darkness and clasped his arm. Katari yelped.

"I hope," said a dangerously sweet voice, "that you weren't thinking of leaving Luna and me here alone, were you?"

"Well, I, ah," said Katari, for once in his life robbed of words.

"That would be _rude_ ," said a second voice. Katari turned to see Sol stepping into view from behind a tree. "I don't _like_ it when people are rude to me."

"Our friend here would never dream of doing that," said Luna, still clinging to his arm. "Would you, Katari?"

"Um, actually, I was thinking..." Katari began.

"That you would back out?" Luna finished. "Just turn around and go home before we got here? That would be breaking your promise. A god of words shouldn't _break_ his word."

"It isn't like that," said Katari. "It's just... maybe this isn't such a good idea. We're going to make Fate and Aurite angry at us."

"You should have thought of that before you agreed to this, then," said Sol. "So, where is it? Show it to us."

Reluctantly, Katari reached beneath the hem of his robe and withdrew the axe. In the light of the setting sun, the gold glowed brilliantly. The twin gods gave identical sighs, deep and filled with unutterable longing. The sound sent a chill down Katari's back.

 _This is all wrong. Why didn't I see sooner how wrong this was?_

"So... what are we going to do now?" he asked, trying for nonchalance.

"Now we'll show you," said Luna. He held out his hands, inviting Katari to hand him the axe.

Katari tightened his grip and began backing up, only to bump into Sol, who was suddenly behind him.

"I'll take that," he said lightly, and deftly plucked the axe from Katari's grip.

"Hey, wait, I wasn't ready to..." Katari exclaimed, scrambling to reclaim his prize, but it was too late. Sol had already danced out of his way and moved to stand at his brother's side.

"Too bad," he said, grinning down at the golden axe. " _We're_ ready."

"I suppose we have to thank you," said Luna, flashing an insincere smile Katari's way. "You've done us a great favor."

"And you're going to do me one too, now, right?" Katari persisted. "You said you would help me take down Akoya."

"Did we?" said Luna, blinking in exaggerated surprise. "Well, I suppose we must have lied."

"Honestly, did you _really_ think we cared about your stupid feud with some cut-rate puffed up human who thinks he's a god?" added Sol, rolling his eyes. "Please. We have more important things to do with our time."

Katari blinked at them. "You _lied_ to me?"

"The light dawns," said Luna. "But thank you very much for the gift. We promise we'll take good care of it."

"We'll put it to good use," Sol agreed.

"But what about me?" Katari protested. "If I don't give that thing back, I'm going to be in so much trouble..."

"You should have thought about that before you gave it to us," said Sol.

Luna flashed him one last smile. "Bye, now."

"Wait, but..."

Katari lunged forward, scrambling to snatch the axe away from them, but it was already too late. The twin gods vanished in a swirl of light and shadow, leaving nothing but the scents of oranges and juniper in their wake. Katari kept stumbling forward, tripped over a root, and fell on his face into a most ungodlike heap. He sat up, spitting out pine needles.

"You come back here!" he shouted at the empty air. His voice echoed in the empty wood. He stared around wildly, searching for any clue that would tell him which way they had gone, but of course, there was nothing. And what could he have done if he'd been able to find them? He'd just handed them one of the most powerful weapons in existence, and he was just a god who wrote poetry. What was he going to do - recite lines to them until they had a change of heart?

And just like that, Katari realized that he was afraid, terrified on a deep and personal level. He had just defied the most powerful being in existence, and not even for a very good reason. He'd done it because of a stupid grudge, and because he'd let himself be conned by a couple of fast-talking strangers. The worst part was, he couldn't even prove they'd ever existed. If he'd never heard of them, who was to say anyone else had? For all he knew, they hadn't even given their right names. He was completely alone, and he was in so much trouble.

"What do I do?" he asked aloud, but there wasn't any answer.


	4. The Punishment

Ouso had his very own temple.

He wasn't actually sure how to feel about this. His new god friends had taken him out of the city and planted him in a remote building in a forest somewhere. It looked very old, hewn roughly of pale gray stone. The walls were inscribed with peculiar designs - Ouso could make out a sun, a crescent moon, an egg, and a lot of what looked like writing, though he couldn't begin to read it. Otherwise, it was a comfortable building. His new masters had presented him with a new wardrobe of priestly robes, given him a room full of simple but serviceable furniture, and had provided him with a supply of food to eat. Other than that, they hadn't asked very much of him.

"What am I supposed to do now?" he had asked them, after they had shown him his new quarters.

"Round up some worshipers, for starters," said Luna.

"Read a few of the old scrolls," Sol suggested. "There should be a few of the old services and litanies left there. Honestly, do we have to think of everything for you? If you want the job, you have to prove you're worth it."

So Ouso had taken their advice. He had done his best with the assembling of a congregation. He'd even gone so far as to hire a few messengers in Lightflower and send them around announcing the temple's opening. A few people had actually showed up for the first few services, if only out of curiosity. Reading old documents, though, had come more naturally to him. He had wandered into the library and taken down the ancient, crumbling scrolls and began reading through them. They had been interesting, at first. He couldn't help but be intrigued by his strange new friends. He had literally watched the two gods raise this temple up out of rubble and bring it back to perfect repair before his eyes. This was the single most interesting thing to ever happen to him. How could he not be fascinated by them?

But the more he read, the more his enthusiasm waned. It was harder to be interested in the doings of gods when they weren't actually in front of him doing something. Reading through the records of their former glories was mildly interesting, but it was all only explained in the most general terms. Storytelling, it seemed, had come a long way from the days when these two had been in charge.

 _Now if I had been telling this story..._

Take, for example, this story about how Luna had decided to create the phases of the moon. Written here, it was all very simple. It sounded as though he'd more or less done it just to make his job more interesting. If Ouso had been in charge, he'd have spiced things up a little - added some interpersonal drama, maybe thrown in some romance. Why not? Gods had flings all the time, especially back in the old days before Vesta had come along and started selling people on the idea of romance. Luna and Sol were a beautiful pair of deities; they ought to be getting some traction out of it. Without even meaning to, he began embroidering on that theme. There must have been a lover - a beautiful young woman, say, whose father had engaged her to a man she hated. She could run away from home by the light of the moon, and meet a mysterious man who captured her heart...

Hours later, he was still scribbling.

* * *

A god's rooms were supposed to be inviolate. That was one of the rules of the Palace of the Gods: outside one's own personal suite, one was subject to the laws that governed the rest of the universe, but inside their own personal suites, their word was law. Even the rules of time and space tended to be a bit flexible, so that a god who was anxiously anticipating something would find time moving faster inside their own space, whereas one who was enjoying some pleasant pastime would find it slowing down so they could enjoy it longer. Likewise, when a god decided that he wanted to be left alone, they could lock their door and it would stay locked. A god might walk straight through solid walls most of the time, but not into the room of another god who had their door closed and locked.

Katari was hiding in his room. He wondered if he might ever be able to come out again. Maybe in another thousand years or so, someone else would have screwed up enough to take the heat off of him.

Even burrowed as far as he could get beneath his blankets, he still heard the knock on his door.

"Katari," said a crisp voice, "would you mind opening your door? I'd like to speak to you for a moment."

Katari swallowed hard. Saying no to Aurite was not a good idea, but...

"Can it wait?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level. "I'm a bit busy at the moment."

"No," said Aurite flatly. "It can't. I will ask you again: open the door, or we will be forced to take more drastic measures."

Katari didn't say anything. What was there to say? "Yes" was impossible, "no" was unthinkable. He pulled his pillow over his head.

 _He can't get in. No matter what he says, he can't get in. I'm safe as long as I stay in here._

There was a rattle as someone tried the door handle. Muffled by the pillow, Katari heard Aurite say, "He's locked the door."

"I'll handle it," said a deeper voice.

 _Wait, what?_

Katari heard a soft hollow sound, as though someone had just braced both their hands firmly against his door. Then there was a peculiar rattling noise, and then a _twang!_ , and the deep voice said, "There, it's open."

Sure enough, Katari heard the click of a latch, and then the sound of feet crossing his floor.

"Oh, help," he muttered.

"We just have a few questions we would like answered," said Aurite. His voice sounded unpleasantly close. "If they are good answers, you have nothing to fear. If they aren't good answers... you can be satisfied that you're getting what you deserve."

"That isn't very encouraging," Katari muttered.

Strong hands seized his pillow and pulled it away, try as he might to hold on to it. Someone peeled back his blanket, leaving Katari woefully exposed. Cautiously, he opened one eye and looked up to see how bad the situation was.

Fate loomed over him, his expression grim. Katari groaned and tried to curl up into a ball.

"None of that," said Aurite. "Sit up and behave with some dignity. You owe yourself that much."

Well, that was a point. Slowly, Katari uncurled himself. He sat up, adjusted the hems of his clothing, and tried to push his hair into some kind of order. Aurite and Fate looked on impassively.

"That's a bit better," said Aurite. "I assume you know why we are here?"

There was no point in denying it. Katari closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "This is about the axe, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Aurite. "You admit you know something, then?"

"I know something, yes."

"And you're going to share it with us, aren't you?" Aurite persisted.

"I guess," Katari allowed. He looked from one face to the other. They looked back at him, waiting. Finally, he could take the pressure no longer, and he blurted out, "It was me! I took the axe, but it wasn't my idea!"

Aurite nodded slowly. "Now we're getting somewhere. Do you still have it?"

"No," said Katari.

"Do you know where it is?" asked Fate.

"No."

Fate and Aurite exchanged worried looks.

"Let me get this straight," said Aurite slowly. "You stole the axe, but you didn't decide to do it on your own, and you don't know where it is now. Does that mean you gave it to someone else? The person who put you up to this?"

"Yes."

"Who was it?" asked Aurite. When Katari hesitated, he added, "I'll find out anyway eventually, so don't think you can protect them. On the contrary, you're more likely to receive clemency if you tell the truth."

"I'm not trying to protect anyone," said Katari, offended. "I'm telling you, I don't know who it was."

Aurite looked doubtful. "You stole one of the most ancient and powerful artifacts in the universe on someone else's say-so, and you don't even know who they are? I find that hard to believe."

"It's true," Katari insisted. "I know they were gods, but I'd never seen them before. They said their names were Sol and Luna."

The reaction wasn't what he expected. Aurite jerked back as if he'd been burned, and Fate's eyes widened in surprise.

"You've heard of them?" Katari asked weakly.

"You can't possibly have seen them," said Aurite flatly. "They were banished, sealed away. No one has seen them for centuries."

"Well, that's who they said they were," said Katari. "For all I know, they could be lying."

"What did they look like?" asked Fate. He sounded... anxious. Worried. That was wrong. Nothing ought to worry him.

Katari frowned thoughtfully. "What did they look like? Pale. Graceful." His voice fell into a lilting cadence. Even at a time like this, he couldn't resist a bit of poetry. "They were lithe, like dancers. They had hair the color of ice and eyes the color of pomegranate seeds. When they used their magic, one of them felt warm like sunlight and smelled of oranges and cloves, and the other felt like a cold night wind and smelled of juniper and flowers."

Aurite and Fate exchanged looks.

"It has to be them," said Fate. He sounded tired and... sad, as if hearing this news was a sore disappointment. "Someone might fake their appearance, but not the sense of their power."

Aurite shook his head. "Impossible. How could they get out? Those seals should have held."

"I don't know for sure" said Fate, "but I could hazard a guess. You were human for a while, and that would have weakened your binding. Having Yumoto out of commission for a time probably didn't help matters, since he wouldn't have been able to deflect any chance the seals were damaged while he was trapped. I'd say that those two things together might have been enough to let something slip." He turned back to Katari. "I suppose they persuaded you that they would help you get even with Akoya?"

Katari's jaw dropped. "How did you know?"

He shrugged. "Everyone knows. You've been sulking about him for days. It might make you feel better to know that it wasn't entirely your fault. One of their abilities is to heighten or dampen emotions at will. I'm guessing they realized that you had a grudge against him and purposely riled you until you couldn't think straight."

"Still," said Aurite, "he did have those feelings to begin with, or they wouldn't have gotten their hooks into him at all."

"That's so," Fate agreed. He sighed. "This isn't how I wanted it to happen."

The unhappiness in his tone was so deep that Katari was momentarily distracted from his own problems. "What do you mean?"

"It doesn't matter now," said Fate. "I just... I hoped for better from them, that's all. I suppose I should have known time wouldn't change them."

"We'll have to find them and deal with them," said Aurite, "but for right now, we need to decide what to do with this person. I take it you aren't inclined to deal with him too harshly?"

"Why do you say that?" Fate replied.

Aurite looked slightly puzzled at this response. "Well, you've always been sympathetic to those two - I assumed you wouldn't want to punish their dupe too dreadfully either. And you did say that no one can use your axe to make mischief but you."

Fate shook his head. "I said that I didn't know of anyone _currently active_ who could misuse it. I thought those two were still safely inside their seal."

"Wait," said Aurite, suddenly alarmed. "Are you saying...?"

"Luna and Sol are very powerful, and their powers are more like mine or Yumoto's than like a standard god's," Fate replied seriously. "I think the two of them together would be capable of using that axe to rewrite reality if they chose to."

Aurite wheeled on Katari. "That's it. You're out of the pantheon."

Katari tried to scramble backwards. "Wait, what did I do? What's going on?"

"It doesn't matter," said Aurite. He produced his bow, a shimmering creation of solid gold light, and began aiming an arrow at Katari. "You won't be around long enough to worry about it."

Katari gave a panicked little squeak. "I wasn't... I didn't mean... I didn't know what I was doing!"

"Then you should have given the matter more thought," said Aurite sternly. "I hope you will be less foolish in your next life."

He drew the arrow back. Fate set a hand on his arm, gently nudging it downward until the arrow was pointed at the floor. Aurite threw Fate a sour look.

"It's my job to pass judgement," he said.

"And I'm the wronged party here," said Fate. "I should get some say in how he's punished. Let me do it."

Aurite held his gaze a moment, then sighed and let his weapon fade out of sight again.

"Fine," he muttered. "Then do it and get it over with."

Katari didn't think this sounded like an improvement. He watched in petrified horror as Fate turned tiredly towards him.

"Tell me," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, "what were you planning on doing once you got that axe of mine?"

"We were..." Katari choked. Here he was, master of words, and he seemed to have lost command of all of them. He swallowed hard and tried again. "They promised me they could use it to make Akoya human again. Not forever - just a little while, just to embarrass him. I wasn't going to leave him that way."

"Hm," said Fate thoughtfully. "All right, that will do. I'm sorry I'll have to do this by hand, but it seems someone has stolen my axe."

Katari was slightly surprised at this show of wit from the normally humorless god. Or maybe it was a genuine apology - who could tell? He opened his mouth to reply, but Fate was already raising his hands. For an instant, Katari thought that Fate was about to hit or strangle him, and he quailed back. Instead, Fate reached into the air on either side of him, and his hands seemed to sink into something invisible, disappearing into rippling folds in reality. The great god's face contorted with concentration, and with an effort, he pulled.

Katari felt it at once. It _hurt_ , and he cried out with sudden pain. It felt as if thousands of tiny threads, each no thicker than spider silk but utterly unbreakable, were wrapped around his body, pulling tight against his skin. He writhed, trying to escape, but they only pulled tighter and tighter still. Then Fate gave a mighty wrench, and threads began to snap. Katari felt each one with a jarring that seemed to run through his bones. With each one that broke, the pain lessened, but it left in its place a sense of weakness and leaden heaviness.

 _He's actually doing it,_ Katari thought. _He's turning me into a human. So this is what it's like. If I had known, I never would have tried to do it..."_

Then darkness closed in on him, and all he knew for a long time was the sensation of falling.

* * *

"It's so beautiful," Aki murmured, gazing fondly down at the golden object in his hands. Even when it was not being used, it felt solid and powerful in his hands, thrumming with energy. Lovingly, he ran his fingers up and down the length of the shaft, enjoying the smooth feel of the gold.

"Give it here," Haru insisted. "It's my turn to hold it now."

"You already held it!" Aki retorted.

"Well, you've had it long enough! It's my turn!"

"You got to hold it first," Aki muttered. "I should get to hold it longer."

"You can hold it again when I'm done," said Haru, attempting to wrench the axe out of his brother's hands. The two of them tussled over it, but Aki was determined and managed to pull free of Haru's grip.

"No fair!" Haru complained.

Dadacha, who had been watching this exchange with wide-eyed interest, soared over to land on the sulking Haru's shoulder.

"What's so important about this axe?" he asked.

Both twins paused their quarreling to contemplate this important question.

"It belongs to Gora," said Haru dreamily.

Dadacha peered with interest at the golden axe. "It must be a very powerful artifact."

"It is," said Aki, "but that's not the point."

"Then what is?" Dadacha asked. "Not that I'm questioning you, you understand - I'm just curious why you'd got through all this trouble to get something if you aren't planning on using it."

"Oh, we're going to use it," said Aki, "but only when the time is right. For now, we just want to enjoy having it."

Dadacha scampered down Haru's arm for a better look. "I suppose it is pretty..."

"It's more than that," Haru insisted. "It's Gora's most important tool. He's been using it since the dawn of time to shape the form and course of the universe. It's... it's..."

"A part of him," Aki supplied. "His symbol. His essence, in a way."

Dadacha blinked. "So, you're saying... what, exactly? That you just want Fate's axe because you're... a fan of him?"

"Don't say it like you're surprised," Haru snapped.

Dadacha flattened his ears in shock. "Sorry, sorry, no offense meant. I'm the last person to speak out against Fate."

Haru settled down. He began absently stroking Dadacha's fur again.

"You just don't understand," he said softly. "Gora means everything to us. He created us, he gave us our purpose, he's the only person to ever take our side..."

"That doesn't explain why you stole his axe," said Dadacha.

"You'll figure it out eventually," said Haru.

"We need it," said Aki, "because the axe of Fate is the one tool that can cut through anything, and we're going to need to cut a few things in the near future. We're going to need another stooge first, though. I don't think the first one will work a second time."

"Just tell me what you need and I'll get it," said Dadacha. He sat up and fluffed his tail proudly.

"We need someone who will be willing to undertake a quest to the underworld," said Haru.

"That's a pretty tall order, dacha," the little squirrel murmured.

"You said you'd find anything we asked for," Haru pointed out. "Now's the time to prove it. He doesn't need to be any sort of hero - just someone willing to go in, grab something, and come back out again."

"It's not exactly easy to get into the underworld," said Dadacha. "Not without dying, anyway."

"We'll take care of that," said Aki. "Just find someone we can manipulate into doing the job."

"I'll see what I can come up with," said Dadacha. "Any other qualifications you need?"

"Someone with delusions of grandeur," said Haru. "Someone who wants to remake the world in his own image."

"Now, that, I can do," said Dadacha. "All right, I'll be back in a bit."

With that, he bounded forward and dove into a rent in the air, vanishing with a final flick of his tail. Aki watched him go with a nod of satisfaction.

"We really were lucky when we found him," he said.

"Provided he comes through for us," Haru replied.

"He will," said Aki confidently. "How hard can it be to find a human with delusions of grandeur?"

"Good point," Haru agreed. "There's probably a glut of them out there these days."

Aki nodded. "We're making good progress. We have a temple and a priest and some followers again, to channel power to us. We have the axe to do the cutting part of things. Now all we need is the underworld stone and everything will be in place."

"And then we can find Gora," said Haru softly, "and everything will be perfect."

"All we have to do is keep at it," Aki agreed.

Haru sighed. "I can't wait. It's been so long. Do you think he misses us?"

"I know he must have," Aki assured him. "He loves us."

And that was the truth, the one shining truth that had sustained them through all the dark years of their imprisonment: Knowing that Gora loved them and they loved him, and that sooner or later they would find a way to be together.

Years ago, they had been lost and wandering in the newly created world. No one really seemed to want them around, and why should they? All the other gods had their own proper places and their own work to do. Aurite kept the stars and planets moving in their courses, kept the seasons turning, made sure the waters and the earth and the birds and beasts all remained in their proper places. En made the people and gods rest when the times called for it. Chance and Fate determined the course that destiny took. The lesser gods of earth and water and air kept their own elements working for the good of all. The little tribal gods managed their own clusters of humans and other sentient beings. They were all usefully busy, and they had no time for a pair of gods who weren't there to do anything in particular. It had been a lonely, frustrating time, and Aki and Haru had been reduced to wandering aimlessly through the world, doing whatever it occurred to them to do without plan or purpose. To Aki, it had felt a little as if they had inherited some of the duty that Chaos had left behind when he had given up that role to become Fate.

That was what had been going through his mind one evening, when he and Haru had been sitting at the top of a ridge of red rocks, looking out at the sunset. It was a bleak landscape, all jutting sharp points and wisps of powder snow clinging to the cracks, and a glint of ocean far off in the distance. The setting sun made the water shine red as blood. From time to time, Aki would pick up a pebble and toss it, watching disinterestedly as it bounced and clattered down the slope.

Then, amid the cold sterile air, there came a gust of warm wind scented of fresh-cut wood and hot metal. Both young gods had looked up to see that where there had been no one before, there was now a tall, strong-looking man in a simple homespun tunic. He sat down between them with a kind smile.

"Hope I'm not interrupting you," he said.

"Not at all," Aki hastened to assure him.

"We're glad to have the company," Haru added.

"Glad to hear it," said Gora. He leaned back with his hands braced behind him and gazed off at the sunset. "Nice view you've found up here."

Aki shrugged. "It's all right."

"Are you two settling in?" Gora asked. "I haven't seen much of you lately."

"We've just been wandering around," said Haru. "There isn't much to do."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Gora, and it sounded like he meant it. "I had hoped that, if I gave you time, you'd eventually think of something you wanted to do."

"How can we?" Aki asked. "We don't have a purpose. Everyone says so."

"Everything has a purpose," said Gora. "If only to be valued for its own sake. I know, that doesn't make much sense to you," he added, catching the looks they gave him, "but I believe it, and I must be right. Right?"

Both of them nodded cautiously.

"But we're still bored," Haru persisted. "All the really important jobs seem to be taken already."

"I suppose there is that," said Gora. He leaned back, gazing up at the sky. The sun might still be glowing faintly over the ocean, but directly above them, the sky was purple-blue and scattered with early stars. A thin curve of the moon hung just inside the boundaries of their view.

"Whatever you two do," he said at last, "I have a feeling it's something the two of you need to do in a pair. I don't think you'd like to be separated, would you?"

Both of them had shaken their heads in strong negation. They had been created together, formed out of the same substances in the same egg. The thought of breaking up and going their separate ways was incomprehensible, and it made Aki a little sick to even think of trying. No, he and Haru were one entity in two bodies, and that was all there was to it.

"I figured as much," said Gora. "All right, how about this. If there's no place on the earth for you, why not take responsibility for something outside the earth? Those, for example." He waved a hand extravagantly, encompassing the sky.

Aki looked up. "You mean... the stars?"

"Sort of, if you want them," said Gora, "but I was thinking of two specific things. Something that comes in a pair."

"The sun and moon," said Haru, brightening suddenly. "One by day, one by night. One for light and the other for darkness, one hot and one cold... just like us."

Gora's smile was brighter than the moon or the sun. "Now you're getting it. So what do you say? Are you up for it?"

"I'm willing to give it a try," said Aki. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It didn't feel perfect, but it felt... comfortable. Natural. Like something he could do if he put his mind to it. He might even enjoy it.

"I think it would work," said Haru, with the light of realization still in his eyes. "Even if it wasn't what we were created for, I think we can do it."

"Wonderful," said Gora. "Then I'll make it official. From here on in, you'll be known to the mortals as Luna, god of the moon, and Sol, god of the sun."

"We'll do our very best," Haru promised.

Aki nodded. "We won't let you down."

"You never do," said Gora warmly. "Don't ever forget that. No matter what anyone ever says, no matter how this job turns out, out of all the things I've created, you're two of my favorites. I'll be proud of you no matter what."

And that was the moment when everything solidified in Aki's mind. If he had been created with no purpose, then it was up to him to choose what his purpose would be. He could devote himself to something he was passionate about.

"Thank you," he said, and risked a shy smile in Gora's direction. It felt like the first time he had ever smiled.

Gora smiled back at him and tucked an arm around both of them, pulling them into a hug. Aki sighed blissfully as he leaned against Gora's side.

 _I don't care about the sun and the moon, but that doesn't matter. From now on, I can devote myself to you._

* * *

From the beginning, Arima had loved his rooms. They were the perfect combination of plush comfort and unpretentious practicality. The floors were wooden, softened by a few cozy carpets and polished until they were glossy and smooth as satin. The furniture was simple and square-cut but astonishingly comfortable. The walls were lined with books, but also with little pots containing a variety of small plants, and the art on the walls depicted lush landscapes and botanical prints. In short, they were a combination of every place he'd ever loved: the sturdy simplicity of his old room he'd had as a child, the austere and venerable suite he'd occupied as a priest, and even touches of the old homeliness of the Cloverleaf Inn and the lavish comfort of Black Swan Manor.

Even better, one door opened up onto a broad courtyard. When he'd first arrived at the Palace of the Gods, he'd opened that door and was disappointed to discover that it was merely a broad swathe of perfectly flat, perfectly smooth green grass. It wasn't until he'd explored further that he'd found a door leading to a potting shed, and had been amazed and delighted to find it stocked with everything from endless quantities of seeds to digging implements to bags of gravel and mulch. In short, the courtyard was his canvas, and for the first time in his life, he'd had absolute freedom to plant a garden that was precisely what he wanted it to be. He was always perfectly content when he was out there, pottering among the plants and deciding what small adjustments he wanted to make next.

But not today. Today he felt... itchy. Unsettled. Something was nagging at him, the way a scrap of something caught between his teeth would irritate him, or the way someone snoring loudly on the other side of a too-thin wall while he was trying to sleep would irritate him. Perhaps more accurately, it irritated him the way knowing he'd forgotten something but being unable to remember what it was would irritate him. He felt certain on some gut level that there was something he ought to be doing, and even the charms of his beautiful garden couldn't soothe the sensation away.

 _I give up,_ he decided, throwing down his trowel. He got to his feet and brushed mulch off the hems of his robe. _If I'm not enjoying myself here, I might as well see if I can do something else productive._

He paused for a moment, testing the air, the way a hunting dog might test the air for the rabbit it was tracking. In this case, what Arima was tracking was the "scent" of someone who needed his guidance. Even if he couldn't find whatever was nagging at him, he was certain he could find something.

 _It has to be whatever shook me so badly before,_ he thought, and tried to put that out of his mind. Since that moment, he had spent several hours trying to track the feeling to its source, but without any luck. Whatever it was, it was hidden too well for him to find it. All he knew was that it hadn't been resolved. It was merely lingering. It reminded him a little of a shrub that had been growing near the corner of his family's garden. No matter how many times he had cut the thing down, or thought he'd dug it up, or even burned it, some fragment or seed of it remained and grew back again as big as ever. Whatever this problem was, he had a feeling that solving it was going to take more than the usual amount of effort on his part.

 _Well, if it's that big, I'm bound to notice it sooner or later._

Even as he was having that thought, he felt a tug on his mental line. He turned towards it, centering himself on it. Yes, there was definitely someone out there who needed him - wanted his help desperately, in fact. He liked those jobs. It always seemed to him that the more strongly someone wanted a direction, the more easily he seemed to find it. Encouraged, he followed the tug down to earth.

What he found surprised him. He landed on a trail in a forest, and needed a moment to orient himself. He realized after a moment that he was a mile or so outside the borders of Lightflower, a little to the northwest. He didn't expect to find such an agonized cry for help near a holy city. The people who tended to congregate in the great cities generally went there because they wanted to pursue some specific goal there. They didn't usually end up there without any reason. And yet, Arima could clearly feel two separate tugs coming from quite nearby.

But the real surprise was where one of them had come from. Sitting on a fallen log in front of him, face buried in his hands, was... well, if Arima hadn't known better, he'd have sworn it was Katari. And yet, it couldn't be, because this man was clearly a human. There wasn't a whiff of power anywhere about him, and Arima had seen Katari often enough to know the scent and feel of his magic: a soft hint of lemon peel and black tea, a shimmer like sunlight flecked with motes of dust. And yet, this man's face and form were perfectly identical. Arima stood blinking at him.

"Excuse me," he said, allowing himself to fade into mortal view. "Did you need some help?"

The man on the log jumped and raised his head. Now that his face was no longer half-hidden in his hands, there was no doubt about it: this could only be Katari.

"Are you here to persecute me too, then?" he asked acidly. "Here to punish me for straying from my duty, perhaps?"

"Actually, I had no idea you were here," said Arima. "I've been in my garden for the last hour. What's going on?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Katari spat. "Didn't your beloved master tell you?"

"He hasn't told me anything," said Arima, bridling a little at the mocking emphasis Katari had placed on _master_. Yes, he had lived his life in devotion to Aurite, but now he was a god, and things were different. He deferred to Kinshiro because Kinshiro was the leader of the gods and _everyone_ deferred to him, but that didn't change the fact that Kinshiro was also one of his oldest and dearest friends. Arima spent time with him because he _wanted_ to, not because Kinshiro had some sort of hold over him. If anything, Arima was more likely to defy Kinshiro than most other people, if only because he knew he had enough credit with him to get away with it from time to time.

"Well, allow me to impart some knowledge," said Katari. Even more than his face, the peculiar chanting quality of his voice made it clear that this was the god Arima had known. "In my immense stupidity, I allowed myself to be convinced by a pair of trouble-making rebel deities to steal the axe of Fate and present it to them. Ergo, I have been punished for my crimes, and as a result, I am now as you see me: mortal, helpless, and lost."

"I see," Arima replied. His voice was level, but inside, he was surprised and very nearly impressed. It took, he thought, a certain amount of chutzpah for a minor god such as Katari to dare to steal Fate's axe. "Did you at least give the axe back?"

Katari glared. "I _can't_. Those two took it - Luna and Sol."

"Those two? But they can't be," said Arima. "They were sealed."

"Well, now they're un-sealed," said Katari. "I already talked it out with Aurite and Fate, and they agreed it couldn't have been anyone else."

"I wonder when they broke free?" Arima mused. Was that what had been tugging at him all this time? He was definitely going to have to look into that.

"How should I know? Recently, I should imagine," Katari answered impatiently. "Look, if you aren't going to be of any help, can you move it along? This is bad enough without an audience."

"When have you ever passed up an audience?" Arima murmured. "Well, never mind. I felt your call, so I suppose it's my duty to assist you."

Katari threw him a sour look. "I don't need your charity."

"Excuse me, but I think I know my job better than you do," Arima answered. "You may not _want_ my help, but you certainly need it."

"Go away," Katari muttered.

Arima began pacing up and down the road, hands tucked behind his back as he considered.

"Let me reason this out," he said. "You've just become human, something at which you have little or no experience. I doubt you have any money, and while you may be an excellent poet, that is not a trade which is notorious for its money-making potential. You have no other practical skills, and being fundamentally a god, I imagine your potential to learn any other skills is severely restricted. Moreover, you're sitting alone in the midst of a forest, which doubtless contains any number of wild beasts and possibly a few demons, any one of whom would consider eating a defenseless god to be a major accomplishment. Also, the sun has gone down and it will shortly be growing very cold, which means there is a good chance you'll be dead of hypothermia before long. Have I forgotten anything?"

"Well, I didn't get around to eating dinner," Katari muttered.

"Ah, yes, lack of food. That is definitely a problem. Well, now." Arima paused in his pacing and closed his eyes, feeling his way through the delicate network of potential paths that surrounded his newly mortal companion. At times like this, he imagined that this must be a little like what Fate must feel when he decided a person's destiny. Even considering that thought was enough to make a man of faith like Arima feel ever so slightly blasphemous. He put the idea aside and began sifting through the choices until he'd winnowed them down to the one that felt right.

"Aha," he said, satisfied. "I have it."

Katari looked at him, resentment and hope mingling in his expression. "Have what?"

"A destination for you," said Arima. He pointed further down the road. "If you continue to travel in that direction, eventually you will see a place where a fresh path has been cleared very recently. Follow that path. When you come to the end, you will find an old stone building. There is only one man living there. Knock on the door and ask him for help. He'll be able to give you whatever it is you need most."

Katari pressed his lips together. "If I don't want to ask you for help, why should I want to ask a mortal for help?"

Arima shrugged. "I didn't say you should want to. I just said you should do it. It's my job to help people find where they truly belong, and all my senses say that the best thing for you is to follow those directions. Fate and Chance alone know what's going to happen to you when you get there - I certainly don't. I only know that this is the most advantageous route for you. Consider it less of an order and more of a tip."

"Hmm," said Katari, looking dubious. "I'll think about it."

"You do that," said Arima. "Come to think of it, the pull works both ways. You have something to offer this character too, I think. And now that that's settled, I'm going back to the Palace. I want to talk to Kinshiro."

"You know, I've been meaning to tell you," said Katari. "It _really_ bothers me to hear you addressing him so informally. He's the leader of the gods, and you're... don't take this wrong... you're halfway from being a mortal. It isn't right."

"Oh, Kinshiro is a pussycat, really," said Arima. "He likes it when you stand up to him. To a point, anyway. As for the other, I don't think you're in any position to criticize."

Katari surged to his feet. "Why, you...!"

"Goodnight!" said Arima, and vanished.

 _I suppose that was a bit cruel,_ Arima mused. _But in a way, he did deserve it._ After learning what Katari had done, he didn't have a lot of sympathy. Anyway, he had done his part now, and he had learned something worth knowing.

 _Luna, Sol, wherever you are, I'm going to find you,_ he promised silently, _and then I'm going to find out why you need my help._

* * *

Katari stumbled along the path, muttering and fuming. He was furious - with Luna and Sol, with Fate, with Aurite, with Arima, and most of all, with himself for getting into this pickle in the first place. He was supposed to be better than this. He had always prided himself on his intelligence and subtlety, and all it had taken was one moment of uncontrolled jealousy to bring everything crashing down on him.

 _I don't care what he says - I can't imagine what there might be out here that could help me._

But what else was he going to do? Arima was right: he was lost and alone and helpless, and he didn't have the skills or resources to protect himself. He wondered what would happen if he really did manage to get himself killed. He doubted he would be allowed to reassume his duties as a god just like that. More likely he'd end up being judged by Aurite and dumped into the Land of the Accursed Dead, or possibly reincarnated as a baby to start everything from the beginning. Neither possibility appealed to him. Being a human, even a human who would doubtless become the greatest poet to ever live, was hardly as appealing as being a god.

One thing he did know, though. Arima might be nothing more than an ascended human and Aurite's favorite pet (Aurite, he felt, was entirely too cozy with humans these days), but he was still unswervingly honest - sometimes tactfully so, sometimes cheerfully blunt, but you could always take him at his word. If he said that help was near at hand, then it was so, no matter what Katari thought of the matter.

So, with no better options, he blundered along the increasingly dark path, hating every step of it. As a god, he hadn't needed need light to see, and cold hadn't troubled him. Now he stumbled over every rock and rut, and sometimes tripped and fell painfully. It was truly maddening that such insignificant little scrapes and bumps could hurt him so much. Likewise, it was ignominious to find himself shivering from cold every time a wind brushed past him. How on earth did humans manage to bear living with this kind of torment every day of their lives? For that matter, why did the ones who had managed to die and land themselves in a comfortable afterlife, free of illness and pain, so often volunteer to be reincarnated and start everything all over again?

At least there was some moonlight to see by. If it hadn't been for that, he never would have seen the path he was searching for. It barely looked like a path at all, not as he would have described it. This was just a place where someone had come along and hacked away all the weeds and underbrush, and scraped away some of the fallen leaves to clear a passage. There was nothing in the way of paving or marker stones, and the road wound more deeply between the trees, away from the moonlight.

"You had better know what you're talking about, Arima," Katari muttered. Still, he turned resolutely off the path and began to walk.

"The fallen nobleman, his mantle ripped cruelly away from him, embarks into the unknown..." he murmured, his mind automatically falling into poetical lines. It was all too easy to imagine himself as the hero of some epic tale. The thought made him feel a little better. He chanted verses to himself as he walked, letting their rhythm dictate the beat of his steps.

He was, in fact, so caught up in his private recitations that he was actually surprised when he first began hearing other voices. For a moment, he just stood there, trying to see into the dark. Then he remembered that he was no longer a god, and therefore visible and audible, and he gave a little yelp of sudden panic and dove out of sight behind a thick oak.

And just in time. No sooner had he gotten himself settled into his hiding place than the voices began to distinguish themselves into audible words.

"...never would have believed it," one person was saying.

"You'd think we'd have heard of them before."'

"You heard what the priest said - these gods have been sealed for eons."

"If they were sealed, it must have been with a good reason..."

"They didn't seem dangerous to me," said someone else. "What's so dangerous about the moon, I ask you? It only shines and marks the time with its phases. I don't see how that could be dangerous."

"The sun is dangerous, though."

"Only if you stand out under it too long like an idiot. We need the sun even more than we need the moon. If you ask me, it wouldn't do any harm to placate the god of the sun once in a while, if he's asking for a little attention. It's the least we can do..."

The voices faded out of earshot, but they left only more discomfort in their wake. Katari couldn't believe it. Arima had sent him to a temple to Luna and Sol, the gods of the sun and moon - there could be no other explanation. Why would he do such a thing? Was he _trying_ to get Katari into trouble? For a moment, the temptation to turn back along the trail and make a run for it was almost overwhelming. The only thing that helped Katari throttle the urge down was the knowledge that if he did, he would run right into those chattering people, and they would no doubt want to know where he'd sprung from. There hadn't been enough people in that group to allow anyone to blend into the crowd, and he doubted there were any other alternate paths to the temple if a new road had to be cut.

He waited a while longer, and was rewarded with the sight of several more groups leaving the temple. They sounded cautiously approving, Katari thought. He wondered what they would think if he told them a little about what the twin gods were really like. At last, the crowd thinned out and vanished altogether. He waited a little longer, just to be sure, before venturing further down the path. Soon the temple came into view: a low stone building with a half-spherical dome and a pillared facade. It was completely dark now, save for a single glint of light in a window near the back. Katari crept cautiously forward, automatically testing the air for signs that Luna and Sol were actually in residence, even though he knew his human senses were too dull to pick up any such traces.

All the same, he was able to reach the front door without incident. He let himself inside, and found himself inside a dim sanctuary. He paused, taking in the sight. Most gods didn't care to trespass on each other's territory, and he had rarely been inside any temple other than his own. This one did nothing to encourage him to change that attitude. The great domed ceiling had hundreds of tiny glass insets, so that the moonlight twinkled and sparkled through it. It should have been beautiful, but on such a dark night, it was only strange and eerie, throwing odd shadows and peculiar bluish highlights over the pews and altar. Katari crossed the room as swiftly and silently as possible, following the aisles to the front of the room, skirting the altar, and slipping through a side door.

That path was better. The hallway he found himself was less ornate and more like someplace someone might actually choose to live. Katari guessed he had found his way to the dormitories where priests, acolytes, and initiates would make their homes. There was even a single lamp shedding some golden light to see by. A door near the far end of the hall stood slightly ajar, and Katari could hear muffled sounds of someone moving around - and, what's more, they were making one of his favorite sounds: the sound of a pen scratching on paper. Forgetting some of his fear, he hurried forward.

Sure enough, the room was occupied. Sitting at a table near the window was a plump, rosy-cheeked young man, writing busily by the light of a lamp. Katari took a moment to watch in approval. There was nothing that soothed his soul like seeing a writer hard at work. However, when it seemed that the youth was so involved in whatever he was scribbling that he might go at it all night before he realized Katari was there, Katari decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. He cleared his throat loudly.

The reaction was more dramatic than he'd expected. The youth - a priest, Katari wondered? - gave a guilty little squeak and overset his inkwell with a jerk of one hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Katari exclaimed. God or not, he had a deep respect for writing and the tools of the trade. He hurried forwards, reaching for the fallen inkwell, scrambling in the pockets of his robe in a vain search for a handkerchief.

"It's okay, it's okay," the young man replied hastily. "I can clean it up. It's okay."

The two of them shuffled around on the floor together, trying to mop up the mess. Katari's hands were already sticky with ink from trying to rescue the inkwell. His new friend fumbled out a handful of handkerchiefs - some of them already ink-stained; clearly this wasn't the first time he'd made such a blunder - and they were able to mop up the worst of the mess before it could sink too deeply into the floor. When they had the worst of it under control, Katari sat back to take a good look at the person on whom he'd made such a poor first impression. He had a pleasant face, Katari thought, with his smooth golden hair, strawberries-and-cream complexion, and expressive blue-green eyes. He wasn't the sort an artist might choose as a model, but he looked gentle and approachable.

 _Was this who Arima wanted me to see, then?_ He cautiously revised his opinion of the god of duty. Something about this man with the sensitive mouth and long-lashed eyes struck Katari as precisely the sort of person he would ordinarily have wanted to claim as one of his own followers. Pity that he'd apparently devoted himself to other gods, and not very nice ones at that.

"Sorry," he said again. "I hope I didn't spoil your writing."

The priest peered at the papers on his desk. "It's okay, I think. Looks like most of it ended up on the floor. Um, who are you? I don't remember seeing you at the service tonight."

Katari paused, on the verge of giving his true name. But that wouldn't work. Everyone knew that Katari was the name of the god of poetry, and no one was likely to give their child such a name, any more than they would name him Aurite or Fate.

"My name is... Tagaru," he answered, choosing the name of a long-dead poet who had been one of his favorite priests about a hundred and fifty years ago.

"I'm Ouso," the priest replied. Then he seemed to remember himself, and pulled himself up a little straighter, raising his chin in a gesture that would have looked more impressive on someone with more chin to gesture with. "I mean, I'm High Priest Ouso, chief of this temple."

Katari pressed his lips together, trying not to frown too visibly. He knew something about high priests by experience. They were a special breed, the mortal avatars of their gods, chosen to act as their representatives on earth. As such, talking to a high priest was the closest most mortals would ever get to speaking directly to a god personally. High priests tended to have a certain aura about them, a sense that they were tapped into a source of massive power. No matter what this man claimed, he was no more a high priest than Katari was a plough horse.

Still, since a mortal couldn't know most of that, Katari settled for, "Then I'm honored to make your esteemed acquaintance, holiness."

The formality seemed to embarrass Ouso; his rosy cheeks went even pinker.

"Oh, well," he muttered. "I'm actually pretty new at the job. I'm definitely starting to get the hang of it, though. Tonight was my best service yet. Did you see it?" he asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid I didn't. I wish I had." For one thing it would have told him more about these two people whom he had decided were certainly his enemies.

"Maybe next time," said Ouso, in the resigned tones of someone who was used to being overlooked.

 _Well, I know how that feels,_ Katari thought, thinking back to his feud with Akoya.

"So, what brings you here, then?" Ouso. "Were you interested in joining the temple? It's just me right now, and I could sure use the help..."

"Actually, I didn't realize there was a temple here at all," Katari said, more or less honestly. "I was lost in the woods, and I heard voices and saw a light in the distance, so I followed it and now I'm here."

"Oh!" Ouso's eyes widened. "Are you all right? You're not hurt, are you? Are you hungry?"

"Famished," Katari admitted. As a god, he could skip all the meals he wanted to, but he'd come into mortality with an empty stomach, and his new body wanted food.

"Well, there's lots to eat," said Ouso. "Sol and Luna provisioned me really well when they stationed me here. Let me get you something..."

Ouso bustled off with an important air, and Katari followed with a feeling of bemusement. The irony of the situation was not lost on him: the false high priest of a pair of rebel gods serving a different fallen god entirely. He wondered what sort of a poem you could get out of this. An unusual one, that was for sure. Still, one thing was for sure: Ouso had been telling the truth about the food. The kitchen he led Katari to was a large and well-stocked one. The food was nowhere near as elaborate as what Katari was used to eating in the Palace of the Gods, but it was wholesome and hearty, and at this point he was hungry enough to have chewed on shoe leather if there had been any at hand. Within minutes, he was sitting at a sturdy wooden table eating cold ham pie and roast herbed potatoes, drinking a surprisingly good red wine, and getting to know his host.

"So what were you writing?" he asked. As much as he knew that it was more important to gain information on his enemies, he couldn't fight his professional interests, and becoming human had not changed his nature.

"Just stuff," said Ouso, staring down at his plate. He had apparently already eaten dinner, but he'd taken a few pieces of bread and butter to be sociable. Now he was pulling the bread apart without eating it. "You wouldn't really be interested."

"Yes, I would," said Katari. "I'm a poet, you see. I'm always interested in writing."

"Well, it's a story," said Ouso. "There's this guy, a farmer, but he really wants to go to the city to make his fortune, only his family has always been in farming and if he leaves there will be no one to take care of the farm and everything. Then one day he's out working in the field alone and a demon comes up to him..."

Katari listened, intrigued. The story itself was nothing fascinating - it was a jumble of used plotlines, scraps of old folk tales, and what sounded like a few autobiographical details for flavoring. What interested him was the effect that telling it had on his host. The more deeply he got into his plot, the more excited he got. His eyes sparkled, his gestures became expansive, his voice took on a firmer tone.

 _How does someone get so excited about such a poor story?_ And yet, somehow, it wasn't such an awful story as it should have been. Ouso was so excited about it that it was hard not to get interested in spite of himself. All the tired old tropes felt fresh when someone was reciting them with such heartfelt emotion.

They were just getting to the point where the luckless farmer had received the news that the woman he loved was being forced to marry a rich and handsome but thoroughly unpleasant nobleman when Ouso looked down and realized that his companion's dinner had vanished a long time ago.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "Your food is all gone. Did you want something else?"

"I want to hear how the story ends," said Katari honestly.

Ouso positively glowed. "Well, it's a pretty long story. We're only in chapter eight, and I've written up to twenty-six."

"Impressive," Katari muttered. He had always been the first to criticize when a work had overgrown its boundaries and stretched out unnecessarily. "Perhaps you'll tell me the rest another time."

"Maybe," said Ouso shyly. "Um. Did you have a place you needed to go? I can give you directions back to the city if you need them. It's not that far."

"No. I don't have anywhere else to be," said Katari. "I've... I lost my job, and I'm at loose ends right now." Taking a risk, he added, "I don't have much interest in the priesthood, but if you have room, I can make myself useful. I don't know any skills, but I imagine I can sweep floors and dry dishes as well as anybody."

"I don't know," said Ouso, biting his lip. "The gods I serve... they're kind of picky."

"I won't be any trouble," said Katari. "I'll stay out of the way. No one will ever have to know I'm here."

 _I especially don't want those two knowing I'm here._

"Well..." said Ouso, and Katari could see him vacillating.

 _Go on, say yes. You know you want to._

"I suppose it would be okay, just for one night," Ouso decided. "I mean, it's my duty to bring new followers to the fold. I can't do that if I kick out everyone who wanders by before they've had a chance to even see a service, am I right?"

"You're right, of course," said Katari, relaxing into a smile.

 _And if I stay here and observe what's going on, maybe I can learn enough to report something useful to the other gods and buy myself some forgiveness._

And in the meantime, he could hear the rest of the story.


	5. The Call to Worship

One of the really nice things about Kou's job was how much of it involved sitting around drinking beer. He was, at present, doing exactly that - relaxing at a table near the wall, sipping a drink and nibbling on a ploughman's lunch of bread, cheese, pickles, and vegetable chutney, and working at being inconspicuous. He was good at it. In this boisterous crowd of off-duty laborers, one small man who wasn't saying anything to anybody was about as noticeable as the wallpaper. He was a regular here, everyone was used to seeing him, and that made them relaxed around him. All he ever had to do was sit back, enjoy his lunch, and let the stories come to him.

Most of the time, the stories weren't anything he could report on. No matter how excited anyone might be that so-and-so had found herself a new girlfriend or that thus-and-such had befallen someone's favorite cow, those weren't exactly things Kou could put in the paper. He had certain standards, after all. For one thing, he didn't like to print anything he hadn't personally confirmed, or had at least gotten from one or more reliable sources, and romantic gossip was one of the hardest things to substantiate. Still, Kou was by nature unashamedly nosy, and he liked hearing these things and knowing that he knew them. You never could tell when such information might be useful, if only as leverage to get more information.

Today, though, he was eavesdropping with a purpose. After all, he'd just been given more money at one go than he normally saw in months of hard work, and that was a powerful incentive to try to give his patron his money's wroth. It appeared the gods were willing to pay handsomely for such tasks, and if he did a good job at this, there might be other such work in the future. If they needed a professional snoop, it might as well be him. And so he listened as the conversation flowed around him, trying to keep his mind blank and let the words sink unfiltered into his brain.

 _Not that I'm going to find anything. Even if something weird is going on in the world, who says it's going to happen here?_

Still, he had to try. He gazed thoughtfully down at his nearly empty mug and wondered if he dared splurge on another drink, or if it would be better to keep his head clear. Maybe he had better order tea instead. He was still mulling over that weighty subject when a phrase managed to catch his attention. On high alert now, uncertain whether to believe what he'd just heard, he turned towards the sound of the voice and leaned a little closer.

"...unlikely, if you ask me."

"Well, that's what he said," another man replied, "and he's never been the kind to invent wild tales, much less something like this."

"But Lightflower... that's Pearlite's territory. No other god would dare move in so close to him."

"These might, if they're really what they say they are. They're supposed to be powerful, these gods - more powerful than any of the others. That's what people are saying, anyway." The speaker took a nervous pull on his beer, as if afraid the gods would overhear him and strike him down for blasphemy, even if he was only repeating it second-hand.

The conversation was too interesting for Kou to be willing to rely on eavesdropping alone. He abandoned the remains of his meal and sidled over to the table of the men who'd been talking.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said smoothly, "but I couldn't help but overhear... you were saying something about Lightflower? I have a cousin in Lightflower." A lie, of course. He had no cousins in Lightflower or anywhere else. As far as he was aware, he had no living family anywhere, aside from Masuya, but he had learned that a few convenient distant relatives were a good excuse to show interest in faraway places. "I hope nothing is wrong there."

The man frowned and stroked his beard. "Well, now, I couldn't say that for sure. See, the thing is... well, I'm a shopkeeper - I deal in pottery - and I've got a trader who comes by every month or so from Lightflower and brings in a few nice ornamental pieces for my shop. Well, he came through this morning, and he was telling me that a new temple had just been founded a few miles outside of Lightflower."

"What kind of temple?" Kou asked.

"A strange one," the man replied.

Kou pulled up a chair and sat down. "I'd like a little more information, if you don't mind. It's important," he added, when the man looked dubious.

So the man began to talk, and the story he told was indeed strange - a jumbled report of ancient sealed gods, temples in the woods, and a coming battle for the fate of the world. According to the report, these new gods claimed to be something unlike anything anyone had seen before - not gods of a single element or ideal, but gods of _everything_. No matter what miracles their petitioners begged for, they reportedly provided. The story was that when the time was right, they were going to overthrow the established pantheon and make themselves the new, better rulers of the world.

"And people believe this?" Kou asked.

"Sure sounds that way," his companion replied. "I couldn't say for sure, though. I haven't been there - I'm only getting this second hand, and you know what rumors are."

"You're probably right," said Kou easily. "But thanks for telling me. I'll write to my cousin and see if he can tell me more."

 _You're probably wrong,_ Kou decided. Under other circumstances, perhaps it might have been merely a rumor, or even some sort of shyster creating a false cult in an effort to gain money or power. The gods always stomped out that sort of thing in pretty short order, but people occasionally tried it anyway. But if the gods were concerned enough about something being wrong that they were reaching out to little people like Kou for help, it meant something big was going down, and a couple of lost gods staging a coup was just the sort of thing that would grab their undivided attention.

Well, Kou was going to write a letter, and not to his imaginary cousin.

"I've never done this before," he muttered to himself, as he left the pub. "I sure hope it works out."

When he had first met his mysterious benefactor, the man had told him that if Kou should ever have something to report to him - "Something you feel it might be useful for me to know" was the way he'd put it - than the thing to do would be for Kou to write it down clearly and carry it to the nearest shrine. The man had said something about it being a safe and convenient place to leave letters, since no one in their right mind would dare steal anything from a shrine, and so therefore it would be private and easily accessible to both of them. A transparent excuse, of course, and they both knew it, but the fiction had to be maintained. Kou had never dared try it, mostly because he didn't quite feel confident in tattling to a god about whatever odd things happened to crop up in his town. He didn't see where it would do any good anyway, since he had no idea what god this was or what their speciality might be. It wouldn't do any good for him to complain about, say, a case of graft going on in the local government if the god who had chosen to favor him was one who was interested only in food or farming. Still, this was a matter of extensive interest, and the god _had_ asked Kou to find him something. This definitely looked like something.

So Kou returned to his home and wrote up everything he knew, or thought he knew, or could guess, and then when he was done, he wrote it all down again in neater handwriting. When he was satisfied that his report was as complete and legible as he could get it, he peeked into the work shed. Masuya was there, happily engrossed in his work. They had used some of the advance money Kou had received to buy Masuya several fresh pots of paint in bright colors, a few more brushes, and some canvas, and he was in paradise.

"Going back out again," Kou called. "Don't wander off anywhere, all right?"

"Ya gah ih," said Masuya around a mouthful of paint brushes.

Kou, who was by now fluent in paintbrush-speech, expertly translated that as, "You got it," and nodded.

"See you in a bit, then," he said, and started for the shrine.

Shrines were an important component to every village, no matter how big or small. Unlike temples, they had neither a dedicated priest nor any services. At their simplest, they were merely wood or stone altars where someone might place an offering to the god of their choice. At their largest, they were practically large enough to be temples themselves, with roofs, walls, and pews to sit and reflect. This one was of the middle-of-the-road variety: a plain stone table with a roof above it to keep the offerings safe from the weather. The roof was supported by four beams, but there were no walls or seats. The altar already showed signs that someone had been there before: a few wilting flowers, a couple of coins, a few piles of sticky ash left by burnt incense. Kou considered a moment before carefully slipping his note under one of the little dishes meant for the incense cones. He stood back and watched it for a moment, but nothing miraculous happened.

"I wish I knew for sure whether or not you were messing with me," he said aloud. There was no answer to that, either. Feeling let down, he turned and began stomping his way back home.

He found his mysterious benefactor leaning against the front gate of Kou's house. That alone ought to have proven that he was a god, since the gate wasn't much more than a rickety collection of sticks held together by lichen and habit. Kou scowled a little. He wasn't sure he didn't prefer it when this man at least _pretended_ to be mortal.

"You sure got here fast," he said.

The man shrugged. "I was in the area. I'd been waiting to hear something from you."

"Right," said Kou. "You know, there's only so long you can string me along like this. I was bound to guess sooner or later."

"I know," said the man, and flashed a sudden, slightly sheepish grin. "But it's more fun this way, you know? I only get but so many opportunities to have fun with my work. But I think you're right," he added, sobering. "The time for having fun is over, if your report is anything to go by. How sure are you about all this?"

Kou waggled a hand. "This is only stuff I heard second or third hand. It's probably gotten exaggerated in the telling, but I'm pretty sure _something_ weird is going on in Lightflower."

"Pearlite will love that," said the other man, with a wry twist of the lips. "He does hate anything untidy. He's almost as bad as Aurite that way."

"Nice to see you aren't pretending you aren't a god anymore."

"Do you want to know who I am?" the man - the god - replied.

Kou had to think about that for a while, and was surprised by the fact. Under ordinary circumstances, he always wanted to know everything about everybody, regardless of whether something was any of his business or not.

"No," he said at last. "You're right. It would take all the fun out of it."

"All right, then," his friend replied. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Lightflower. I don't usually have much to do with Lightflower. I suppose I could just go ask Pearlite if he has someone he could send to investigate, but his people don't tend to be investigators..."

"Aren't you sending me?" Kou asked, outraged.

The god blinked at him. "But you don't live anywhere near Lightflower. It would take you weeks to get there. Besides, you have work here and a home here. I don't expect you to..."

"If you don't expect me to finish my job, you've got another think coming," said Kou hotly. "This is maybe the biggest story I'll ever have a lead on, and I want my piece of it." Besides, he was dying of curiosity now. If he didn't get the full story, it would eat at him for the rest of his life.

"What about your husband?" the god asked. "You don't want to leave him behind, do you?"

Kou shrugged. "So I'll take him with me. Big deal. He's always wanted to go to Lightflower. He'll be over the moon when I tell him we're going. With that money you gave us, he can probably buy all sorts of fancy paints or brushes or whatever it is he spends his money on. Heck, if we can find a place to rent, we might even decide to put down roots there. There's bound to be more opportunity there than in this dump."

The god smiled faintly. "You raise a point. All right, then. I think you might be right. You're a free agent - not sworn to any god in particular, even to me. You won't raise any alarms if you decide to go look inside somebody else's temple. If you're willing to go in and infiltrate the place, then I'll get you there, and if you decide you want to stay I'll talk to Pearlite and see if he can't set you up somewhere."

Kou contemplated that offer for a moment. This was a reasonably prosperous town, but not a wealthy or particularly exciting one. He suspected that half the reason his papers didn't sell better than they did was because nothing particularly interesting happened there for him to write about. Lightflower, however, was a large and wealthy city. Surely there were opportunities there. Give a clever man like Kou a little capital and a place to start, and he had no doubt that he could be living like a king within ten years, in a place like Lightflower.

"Just let me explain the situation to Masuya," he said.

"Will it take long?" his companion asked.

Kou shook his head. "He never takes much explaining."

His prediction proved accurate. Masuya was right where Kou had left him, happily painting away. Kou peered over his shoulder, admiring the dramatic lines of the piece. Even within the short time they'd been married, he thought his husband had improved his skills considerably.

"Looking good," he said, and Masuya beamed at him.

"Say," Kou continued, "I've just had an interesting job offer. How'd you like to leave town for, oh, I don't know, a week or two, and visit Lightflower?"

"Lightflower? Really?" Masuya asked.

"Sure, sure. Would I kid about that? We've got some spending money, we ought to be able to have a good time there. See some sights. Heck, paint the sights, if you want."

Masuya didn't say anything, but he leaped to his feet and embraced his husband tightly, and that was all the answer Kou needed.

"All right, then," he said, disentangling himself at last. "I've got a... a wizard all lined up to transport us there, so we can leave any time you're ready. Get your stuff packed, okay? We're having dinner in Lightflower tonight."

Masuya's grin could have outshone the sun. Kou smiled. This, he thought, was going to be one definitely worthwhile job.

* * *

The Kurotama bath house was closed that morning.

There wasn't usually a lot of business in this part of the world on Sunsday. The area the brothers had chosen to settle in was largely devoted to Aurite, and Aurite held his services on Sunsday. Because of that, nearly every business in town closed so that the good citizens could spend their day in worship and contemplation. That was all right with Yumoto. His brother had been working hard lately, what with trying to put a new axe together and trying to figure out where Luna and Sol were hiding, and after all that, Yumoto had put his foot down and insisted that Gora get some rest. Everyone deserved a day off.

Including him. He loved the bathhouse - well, obviously he did, since he didn't exactly have to stay there if he didn't - but there was something nice about having free time to do nothing in particular. Even gods liked a little downtime. At the moment, he and his Wombat companion were lounging by the side of a river, soaking up the warm sunshine and chatting or dozing as the mood took them. Yumoto had picked a pile of little orange flowers and had spent the last hour or so braiding them into flower crowns. He was sporting one, and so was Wombat, and now he was making one for his brother.

Gora, less inclined to be lazy, had brought a fishing line with him. Now he watched the floater with half-closed eyes, waiting for the moment when it would bob. The sunlight sparkled gently off the surface of the water. A dragonfly, brilliant blue in the bright light, wove lazily through the weeds. Suddenly, the floater dropped beneath the surface, bobbed up, then dropped again and stayed down. Gora surged into action, hauling on the line, and Yumoto looked up from what he'd been doing to lean forward in anticipation. He watched the line make ripples across the surface of the water, trailing V-shapes one way and then the other as the fish fought. Then Gora hauled himself to his feet and gave a mighty pull, and the fish came sailing out of the water and onto the bank.

Immediately, the immense bird that had been sunning itself on the grass next to Gora flapped and flopped to his feet. He moved clumsily but swiftly over to where the fish was still doing some flapping and flopping of its own on the riverbank. With a surprisingly deft movement, he snapped it up in his beak. Gora laughed.

"You could at least wait until I've unhooked it," he said.

"I'm hungry," said the bird, or at least that's what Yumoto assumed he was saying. It was a bit hard to tell when the bird had a mouthful of still-wiggling fish.

Gora laughed again. "You'd think we never fed you, Hashibiro. Come here." He got up and began to unhook the fish. As soon as it was free of the line, Hashibiro tossed it up into the air, caught it neatly, and swallowed it in a single gulp.

"Ah," he said. "Much better."

Yumoto smiled. Hashibiro the stork god was one of his brother's few close friends, known as the King of All Birds. He certainly was important, although Yumoto had never quite worked out if "king" was the proper title. The hierarchy of bird gods was even more complicated than that of the human pantheon. One of these days, he thought, he was going to have to tell some of the human theologians about this and watch them grapple with the fact that their own gods were perhaps not the most exciting in the universe, at least by some standards. But Yumoto was grateful for Hashibiro, who gave Gora someone else to talk to.

Now that the excitement was over, Hashibiro settled himself back down on the grass, tucking himself into a surprisingly compact bundle for such a large bird. Yumoto watched him thoughtfully, idly tossing some of his flowers into the river and letting them drift away.

"Big Brother," he said, "do you ever get lonely?"

"Hm?" said Gora. He had been involved in fitting another piece of bait onto his hook. "Lonely? Why would I be lonely? I have you and Wombat and Hashibiro, and we've been spending more time with the others in the Heavenly City. Not to mention all the customers we get."

"Well, yeah," said Yumoto. He pulled up stems of grass as he considered how to express himself. "But it's like... well, look at the people we spend time with. They're all so close. You've never had anybody like that. Not somebody who was your best friend, unless you count me and Hashibiro. And I'm your brother so that doesn't really count, and Hashibiro is a bird and has to do his bird stuff most of the time. No offense," he added.

"None taken," said Hashibiro, without opening his eyes. "And I think you're right. Birds of a feather have to flock together. You two are gods of humans, first and foremost, and you belong with the other human-type gods."

"Right," said Yumoto. "But we don't. I'm not even sure we can. There's always... things to worry about."

"I know," said Gora. "But it's all right, really."

But Yumoto could tell that it wasn't all right. He had known his brother literally as long as Gora had been conscious and self-aware - all his life, in practical terms. Gora could never lie to him, and Yumoto knew how hard he had taken the events of the Chaos War. Up until that moment, he had always wanted to believe that he would never slip and become Chaos again. He had trusted Yumoto to take care of him. Instead, he had been forced to learn the hard way that if someone was determined enough to make it happen, they _could_ force Chaos back to the forefront of his personality. It had been a very near thing that had prevented him from destroying everything he had created. Deep down, Yumoto wasn't sure he could have brought his brother back from the brink if things had been delayed for very much longer. They had never wanted to face that possibility, and now it was all too real. So was the knowledge that what had happened once could conceivably happen again.

 _Are we going to spend the rest of time worrying about this?_ Yumoto hoped it wouldn't be like that. When his brother was in his aspect of Fate, he was the kindest, gentlest, most generous creature alive. He would never want to put the beautiful universe he had created in jeopardy. There had to be a way to ensure that he never became the force behind its destruction. And yet, Yumoto was starting to doubt himself on that score. He had been shaken, too, to realize that there was a way to make it so he couldn't protect his brother.

 _I can't really stop Chaos. I can only contain him. For a little while, anyway. But I'm just one of the created gods, and I can be sealed or destroyed like any other god. If that ever happened..._

No, he wouldn't think about that. But the point was, he knew that Gora avoided other people most of the time because he was scared. He didn't want to get too close to someone and have that person be on the front lines when Chaos inevitably slipped again. That was why even now, when he was spending so much more time among the other gods, he didn't let himself get too close to any of them. He wanted them around because he was still afraid, and wanted them watching him and ready to fight him if the need should arise.

 _That's an awful way to live. He deserves better._

But what was there to do? Chaos was part of Gora every bit as much as Fate was. You couldn't separate the two. There was no way to make it so Chaos just went away forever, and no way to ensure absolutely that he could never emerge again. All they could do was wait and watch and hope that when it happened again, they'd all be ready to deal with it.

"I'll always be here for you," he blurted. "You don't have to be afraid of that. I won't let you get lonely."

Gora smiled - a little sadly, as if he guessed some of what Yumoto was thinking.

"I know," he said. "I trust you. I know you won't let me down. And don't worry too much - I'm happy with you here. You're all I really need."

Yumoto forced himself to smile, but when Gora went back to his fishing, Yumoto didn't resume his flower weaving. Instead, he stared down at his hands and did some serious thinking.

 _There has to be someone, somewhere, who's safe to make friends with Gora. He's so good and kind - he deserves to be loved by lots of people, not just me._ He frowned in concentration, his normally childlike face unusually grave. _And if there's any chance at all, I'm going to find a way to make it happen!_

* * *

Ouso woke up the next morning in an unsettled mood. On the one hand, he was still not altogether certain about this whole priest business. It was not turning out to be quite what he had imagined, when he had presented himself - or tried to - at the door of Pearlite's temple, what felt like a lifetime ago. There, he had imagined that it would all be very mystical. He had envisioned himself walking in solemn processions, meditating in rooms full of scented smoke, communing with the gods and receiving higher wisdom from them. He had imagined performing miracles for a grateful populace. Instead, being a priest seemed to be a lot like being anything else. He still spent most of his time cooking his meals, keeping his new rooms clean, and doing general busywork. Conducting a temple ritual, he'd been forced to admit, was not particularly more interesting than sitting through a service, once you'd done it a time or two and gotten used to the idea that everyone was staring at you.

On the other hand, he now had a guest, and that was considerably more interesting. Rescuing handsome strangers from the dark depths of a misty forest was right up his alley - and for once, the stranger he had picked up actually _was_ handsome. Every other time Ouso had let a stranger stay in his home, it was usually some wandering farmhand looking for a place where he could pull weeds or peel potatoes for a night or two before moving on to better prospects. Most of those had been sunburned, wind-chapped, roughened by weather and hard work. This man was clearly cut from better cloth, being gracile and slender-handed, with long wavy hair and the kind of features that made Ouso think that deep thoughts must go on behind that slightly haughty face. Definitely a man of quality, no doubt about it. For once, things were going more or less the way Ouso might have chosen to plan them, if anyone had given him the option.

 _Though he'll probably turn out to be less than I'm hoping for,_ he thought, and pushed the idea away. He refused to lose hope over this. Sooner or later, things were bound to start going right for him. No doubt this wandering poet would turn out to be, oh, say, a prince in disguise. Yes, certainly a prince, or perhaps at least a dispossessed noble, fleeing his household because he was about to be forced into a marriage with someone he hated... No, Ouso had used that plot once before this week. Say instead that he was fleeing because his evil uncle had just murdered his good and noble but all too trusting father by putting poison in his wine. Of course, it couldn't be proven, and if this Tagaru spoke up about it, his uncle would have him accused of treason and kill him horribly. There was no choice but to flee and assume the guise of a poet, one of the few skills in which someone of noble birth might be trained that wouldn't immediately give him away. He had feared to go into the city where someone might recognize him, so instead he had wandered through the forest, hoping to find the hut of some hunter or herb-gatherer who rarely ventured into the city and thus wouldn't know him on sight. He had followed the light of the temple hoping to find such a person, and had instead found Ouso. Of course, he was probably already smitten by Ouso's good looks and kind nature, and soon he would fall desperately in love, and...

Well, it wasn't likely, but a guy could dream, right?

Those were the thoughts that went through his head as he prepared breakfast that morning. He was taking a certain amount of pleasure in the fact that he was cooking for two people today instead of just one. It was a sign that things were starting to go better for him. Perhaps he would soon have a small flock of initiates here to help him with the chores - or better yet, to do them for him. He was chief priest, after all, first high priest of a pair of very important gods. No doubt initiates would be flocking to the place soon enough, and he wouldn't have to worry about this sort of minutiae anymore. He could give himself up to more important pursuits, such as filling out the temple register of events, which was turning out to be an interesting job.

Well, to be fair, he wasn't keeping a _strictly_ accurate account, but if this temple lasted as long as his new gods seemed to expect, people were going to want to tell legends about it someday, right? He needed to give them something suitably dramatic to read about. No one wanted to look up the story of how their religion was founded and read, "Today we had sixteen new parishioners join us, I scrubbed the windows and accidentally knocked out a pane, but I managed to stick it back in with some putty and I don't think anyone will notice, and also I baked some bread." No, if you wanted people to believe something, you had to give them something worth believing.

Tagaru shuffled in, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.

"Morning," said Ouso. "Sleep well?"

"Mm," said Tagaru. "I'm not used to sleeping in such rough conditions. But thank you for providing the bed, anyway."

 _Definitely a noble,_ Ouso decided.

"Sorry," he said aloud. "We're still getting this temple set up. It's still very new. I'm sure once we have more congregants and start getting the donations coming in, we'll be able to afford better beds and things."

"I'm not complaining," said Tagaru. "That smells good. What is it?"

"Scrambled eggs with herbs, bacon, and scones," said Ouso. He was, in fact, a reasonably good cook. He'd done a lot of the cooking when he still lived at home - it was one of the few jobs his parents could find for him where he was invested enough in the results not to let it all drop when his mind wandered off on some high-flung fantasy. The first few times he'd had to do without a meal because he'd burnt it through inattention, he had taught himself to pay a very close watch on his cooking.

"Sounds good. Can I help?"

"You can set out some dishes," said Ouso, "and fetch some water for the tea."

Tagaru seemed a little taken aback by this - _definitely_ a noble, because who else wouldn't have a clue how to pump water or steep tea? But he was a quick study and managed well enough once he had some instructions to go by, and soon he had the table set out and the kettle bubbling over the fire. It was very pleasant, Ouso thought, to have a little companionship. Even in the few days when he'd been running the temple by himself, he had gotten tired of being alone. This great stone pile _echoed_.

At last, the breakfast was ready, and the two of them settled down to eat. Ouso made a show of blessing the meal, but his heart wasn't really in it and he could tell Tagaru wasn't into the idea either, so he wrapped it up quickly.

 _I still can't quite convince myself that these two can be gods of everything. I suppose that makes me a bad priest, but..._

But he'd been asking Raito, the god of cooking, for his blessing over a meal for years and it was a hard habit to break. He was all too eager to change the subject to something of more personal interest.

"So tell me about yourself," he said, as he sprinkled salt over his eggs.

Tagaru shrugged uneasily. "There isn't really much to say beyond what I told you. I'm a poet - a good one, I think. I've been doing it all my life."

"I see," said Ouso. "What about your family? Parents, brothers, sisters?"

Tagaru shook his head. "No, no brothers or siblings. My parents... I never really knew them."

Ouso immediately invented a suitably dramatic explanation for that, but he had the good manners not to pry.

"I see," he said simply. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Tagaru shrugged again. "I can't really miss what I never had, you know? I have lots of friends anyway, or at least I did."

"So what happened?" Ouso asked.

"I crossed swords with the wrong person," said Taiguru. "I offended a powerful person in my social circle, and he snubbed me very badly. When I tried to get even with him... well, it didn't go at all the way I planned it."

He looked so morose that Ouso was sorry he asked. Impulsively, he reached across the table to pat Tagaru's hand.

"It'll be okay," he said. "You can stay here with me as long as you want."

Tagaru mustered up a weak smile. "You might be stuck with me a long time, then."

"That's fine. I like having company," said Ouso. It was one of the most unadorned and honest statements he'd made in his life.

"So what about you?" Tagaru asked. "You haven't told me anything about yourself. How did you end up here?"

"Um," said Ouso. The truth was a bit embarrassing, what with being turned away from Pearlite's temple and all the stumbling around in the dark after a _squirrel_ , of all things. Surely that would not impress a man like this. "Well, the truth is... you won't spread this around, will you?"

"My lips are sealed," said Tagaru, very solemnly.

"Well, the fact of the matter is that my mother... she was a very beautiful woman. I get my looks from her, you know."

"I can see that."

"Well, she was very beautiful, like I said, but she was born to a very poor family, and had no prospects, but the son of the duke fell in love with her the first time he saw her across a marketplace..."

He spun out the story, falling easily into the well worn paths of fiction. He had told himself this story a thousand times before, building and embellishing on it until it felt more real to him than reality ever had. Why shouldn't he have been the illegitimate son of a wealthy young noble and a poor but beautiful woman, instead of the boringly legitimate son of a pair of provincial farmers? In any well-regulated universe, he _would_ have been. How else could you explain someone like him, someone so attractive and intelligent, springing up from such humble beginnings? And not even interestingly humble beginnings, at that. If he'd been the son of, say, a poor but honest woodcutter or a wandering minstrel, it might have been better, but who cared about a stocky red-faced man and his equally stocky red-faced wife, their turnip farm, and their five children? They would barely even serve as background characters in any proper tale. Ouso couldn't be blamed for repairing things a little. And so he populated his life with characters who _should_ have existed: his dashing father, his virtuous mother, the wicked chamberlain who was determined to separate the two, the scheming vixen of a noblewoman who had pried the two of them apart, the loyal serving woman who had adopted him and raised him as her own, and on and on.

He had told stories like this before, of course. He had told people who ought to have known better than to listen to him about it - the people who had known his parents all their lives and of course would have realized that what he was telling them wasn't the factual truth. But he had also told perfect strangers, and somehow they had always seen straight through him anyway. He couldn't understand why. The story he told made so much more sense than reality that it was hard to imagine why no one would believe it.

But Tagaru was listening. He hung on to every word, eyes wide, leaning forward in his seat. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself, and the more attentively he listened, the more Ouso embroidered and elaborated. It was the first time in his life he had ever had anyone take him seriously, and he was loving it.

 _Truly this man has the soul of a poet,_ he decided. _No one else would be able to recognize the truth in what I'm telling him._

By the time he finished, hastily tacking on an explanation - a little rough, since he'd had to come up with in a hurry - of how he had been chosen by Luna and Sol to serve as chief of this particular temple, he was positively glowing with pride and pleasure at the attention. His breakfast had gotten cold on his plate. He finished his tale by taking a long drink of lukewarm tea, to soothe the strain that so much talking had given his throat.

"That is a remarkable story," said Tagaru at last.

"It is, isn't it?" Ouso agreed. "But it's the truth, I swear."

"Oh, I know," said Tagaru, nodding sagely. "I can hear the truth in every syllable you utter. To a poet like me, it's like listening to music."

Ouso blushed and fumbled with his napkin. "Well, I, uh, can't take much credit. Since that's really how it happened, you know. I didn't make it up or anything."

"I know," said Tagaru again. "And I hope you will think of more interesting things to tell me about. I like listening to you talk."

"Really?" Ouso, who had been staring down at his half-eaten breakfast, looked up at him with wide eyes. "You want to hear more stories from me?"

"I do," Tagaru agreed. "And perhaps they'll inspire me. I can write them down and put them to verse for you, if you like."

"I'd like that a lot," Ouso said, suddenly shy.

"In that case..." Tagaru began, and didn't get much further, because there was a sudden disturbance in the air. The scents of the kitchen - herbs and bacon and baking bread - were suddenly overwhelmed with the sweet scents of oranges and juniper, spices and moonflowers.

"They're coming," said Ouso suddenly. He bounded to his feet and hurried out of the kitchen. He didn't know what propelled him - shame at facing gods in his humble kitchen, perhaps, or an unwillingness to let Tagaru see how the two of them looked down on him when he wanted so badly to impress him, or perhaps just a sense that the only proper place to deal with a god was in the sanctuary of a temple. In any event, something told him that he absolutely could not face Luna and Sol there in the kitchen with anyone watching. He blundered down the hallway at something close to a run and burst into the sanctuary.

Where he promptly tripped over a crack in the uneven stone floor and went sprawling. He landed with a heavy "Oof!" and one of his sandals fell off.

"Well, well," said a voice above his head, "It looks like someone has learned his proper place very quickly."

"Oh, I don't know," said a second voice. "Kneeling is all very well, but that pose is a bit untidy, don't you think? He should learn to do it with more grace."

Ouso scrambled and managed to catch hold of his missing shoe, jam it back onto his foot, and pull himself into something like a kneeling position. The stones of the floor were cold and uncomfortable, even through the fabric of his robes.

"My lords," he murmured, a little indistinctly. Falling on his face like that had knocked the wind out of him a bit.

Sol and Luna smirked down at him, clearly enjoying his discomfiture.

"We've come to see how you're doing," said Sol. "I hope you have something good to report for us?"

"Kind of," he said. "I mean, yes. I mean... what counts as good?"

"Well, for starters, we did ask you to bring us in a congregation," said Luna. "I suppose you've at least managed that?"

Ouso nodded. "Oh, yes. We've been doing very well in that regard. We had twice as many last night as the night before. Give me a few more days and we'll have this temple filled."

"Work fast," said Sol. "My brother and I are not patient gods. We need a proper lot of worshipers if we're going to get any real work done."

"I'll do my best," said Ouso. "Is there anything you can do to help me?"

He immediately regretted asking. The two of them scowled as if they thought he had just insulted them.

"You're supposed to be doing this yourself," said Sol.

"He does raise a point, though," said Luna. "We can't expect people to worship us on reputation alone. Perhaps we should arrange for a miracle of some form."

"Have you got something in mind?" asked Sol.

"Oh, I think I can come up with something fun," said Luna, flashing a catlike smile. "After all, we do have... certain resources we can draw on. Our little faithful friend could be of aid to us here, I believe."

"What do you..." Ouso began, and then flinched at the look he gave them.

"Actually, I'd like an answer to that too," Sol admitted. "What are you thinking, brother of mine?"

In response, Luna leaned over and whispered something into Sol's ear. Sol grinned.

"Oh, I like the way you think," he said. "That's going to be fun, not to mention a good way to test certain people's loyalty. Let's do it."

"Very good," said Luna. He turned his attention back to Ouso. "Go into the city and spread the word. This very night, there is going to be a miracle here, something truly impressive. Tell anyone who wants to witness the true power of a god that they are welcome to come and observe it. Encourage them, even. If you don't have this building packed to capacity by the time we're ready for our big reveal, we will be deeply disappointed in you."

"It shall be done, my lord," said Ouso humbly.

"It had better," said Sol. "Otherwise we're going to have to find another priest. You _can_ be replaced, you know."

"I know," said Ouso.

"Then we'll leave you to it," said Luna lightly. "We will see you again, in person, tonight at about seven bells. Until then, make yourself useful and stay out of trouble."

"Wait," said Ouso. "There's just one thing I wanted to ask."

Both of them gave him identical, "This had better be good," looks.

"I picked up a vagrant last night - a wandering poet," said Ouso. "He asked if he could stay here for a few days, just until he can find somewhere better to be. I said he could sleep in one of the spare rooms. That was all right, wasn't it?"

The two of them shared a quizzical look. Whatever they had been expecting him to ask, that had obviously not been it.

"A poet, hmm?" said Luna, mostly to himself. "There seem to be a lot of those around lately, have you noticed?"

"Beg pardon?" Ouso asked.

"Oh, nothing. Forget I mentioned it," said Luna.

"You might as well keep him, since you've got him," said Sol. "Put him to work. We haven't had any new hymns in centuries. Maybe he can come up with something that's more the fashion. I'd like to have some good music in our temple again."

"I'll talk to him about it," Ouso promised.

"See that you do," Luna replied. "And now, if that is everything?"

Even if there had been something else, Ouso wouldn't have mentioned it, not with that impatient stare leveled on him.

"That's everything," he replied.

"In that case..." said Sol, and both of them disappeared into a swirl of light and shadow without even finishing the sentence.

"Whew!" said Ouso, letting himself slump backwards onto the floor. He lay there for a while, letting the coolness of the stone soothe him a little. Talking to gods was supposed to be an uplifting experience, he thought, a little resentfully. These two always left him feeling like he'd just gotten a good tongue-lashing from his old schoolteacher for not getting his homework done on time.

But at least it had come out more or less all right. It sounded as though there was going to be something interesting happening at the service tonight. Well, good. He had been hoping for interesting things when he accepted this job, and so far he hadn't seen his new gods doing anything more interesting than disappearing and reappearing. They had to be good for more than that.

And at least they had said that Tagaru could stay. That was even more encouraging. He hadn't been able to bring himself to lie about the poet's presence, because surely his gods would have found out eventually, but he hadn't wanted to get him thrown out, either. But now everything was going to be all right. He was sure he could persuade Tagaru to write some verses to keep Luna and Sol happy, and then they would let him stay. And if he stayed long enough, then surely, surely...

He sat up, feeling suddenly warm all over despite the cold stone. He had spent his whole life telling himself stories. He had even, to some extent, made himself believe them, but only because real life had been so dull and dismal that it was easier to trick himself than to accept that there might be nothing ahead for him but farming turnips and rutabagas for the rest of his life. He was so used to telling himself stories that even when the gods themselves began appearing and getting involved in his life, he hadn't quite been able to accept it. To him, it had felt as though one of his stories had just gotten a little more involved than most.

But now, when he thought of his new friend, and of the fascinated light in his eyes as he listened to Ouso's stories, Ouso began to believe that there was a chance that at last some of his dreams might come true.


	6. The Miracle

So this, Kou thought, was Lightflower. He considered himself a worldly man, not easily impressed by either grandeur or squalor. After all, it wasn't as though Wintertree were a small town - hardly a metropolis, sure, but they had their share of society and culture. They had a theater and a real library in Wintertree, and that wasn't something every town could boast. But _this_ place... Kou was forced to do what he could to hide his astonishment. He hadn't realized that anything outside the Land of the Blessed Dead could be so... well, _sparkly_.

 _I didn't know what I was missing._ A flicker of ambition stirred inside him. He had always thought that he would be content if he could just amass enough reputation, or at least enough money, to break into the respectable circles of society in Wintertree, but this was another standard of living entirely. He was going to have to work hard to make a go of this job.

He glanced over to see how Masuya was taking this and had to smile. His husband was staring at everything with eyes gone huge. Kou couldn't remember the last time he had seen his normally placid husband look so amazed at anything. Even on the day of their wedding, Kou had been the one fretting with nerves, while Masuya had simply been happy and serene, confident that everything was going exactly as it should - and even if it wasn't, what did it matter, as long as they were properly married at the end of it? But now he was gazing this way and that with a rapt expression, trying to take in everything at once.

"Pretty nice, huh?" said Kou, patting his arm in a soothing gesture. "Maybe if this job works out, we'll set up shop and stay here. What would you think of that?"

Masuya tore his gaze away from the display of ornamental ironwork he'd been admiring to give one of his rare smiles.

"It's nice," he said.

Kou had to grin at that. "Yeah, I think so too."

They had made it as far as what seemed to be the main shopping district. People thronged there, buying everything from buttons to bedsteads, candlesticks to carriages, anklets to armor, all of it of the most glorious craftsmanship.

"Think you can find your way back to the inn if we split up here?" Kou asked. "I know you want to do some shopping, right?"

Masuya nodded. "I'll be fine. You?"

"I'm going to poke around a little, see if I can get any leads on this cult thing," Kou replied. "Bound to be someone around here who's heard of it."

Masuya frowned a little. "Is that safe?"

"Ah, don't worry. I'll be fine," said Kou. "I'm not planning on doing anything stupid. I'm just going to look around and ask some questions, the same as when I'm researching any other story. I'll be back by dinnertime, and we'll go out and do something fun - maybe go to see a show. As long as we're here, we might as well soak up some culture, right?"

That made Masuya smile a little. "Right."

"Then it's settled," said Kou. He stood up on tiptoe to give his husband a brief kiss. "Now, go have fun. Bring me back a souvenir."

Masuya agreed that he would and ambled off into the crowd. Kou watched him fondly for a moment before pulling his mind back on business. He really did intend to keep his promise to be back in time for dinner and entertainment. For one thing, just walking through the inn's common room when he'd checked in was enough to reassure him that the place he was staying served a menu that was miles beyond anything they could get back home. For another, the room they were staying in now was better than the one they'd spent their honeymoon in, and he had plans to take advantage of it. Even so, his nature was to chase after information first and foremost, and he was not about to let his personal desires get in the way of his need to follow this story to its conclusion.

 _It shouldn't take long,_ he consoled himself. _Anything this out of the ordinary is bound to be generating talk._

And the marketplace was obviously a good place to do it. Everyone in the city wandered through this place sooner or later, either to sell something, to buy something, or just to look at what everyone else was buying and selling. Kou wandered up and down the aisles of market stalls, pausing here and there to admire something that caught his interest, chatting with the artisans and striking up conversations with the locals, and occasionally buying some small object to grease the wheels of social interaction. Well, why not? Even if this job came to nothing, at least he'd get a few mementos out of the trip.

But it turned out that luck was with him. As he bargained with a woman selling bronze inkwells, he overheard two customers chatting with each other, and he sidled a little closer to listen in. While he picked through a selection of pen holders, the two women exchanged news. It seemed that there was a special service planned someplace they called the Temple of the New Creation. Kou had never heard of such a place before. Temples were usually just given straightforward names like "The Temple of Sulfur" or whichever god they belonged to. The exceptions were usually something readily identifiable, like the Friend of All Gods temple to Argent or the Three Gods Temple, which was devoted simultaneously to Pearlite, Vesta, and Sulfur. Kou had never heard of any god who might have been identified with this new creation title in any but the loosest possible association.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I couldn't help but overhear. What's this Temple of the New Creation? I don't believe I've heard of it."

"It's a temple devoted to the gods Luna and Sol," one of the women explained. "I couldn't tell you much about them myself, but from what I've heard, they're very powerful and mysterious."

Kou flashed a grin. "I think that applies to most gods."

"More than usual," she elaborated. "That is, that's what I've heard from the people who've been there. I haven't been myself, but I was thinking of going tonight. They're saying something big is going on. I'd hate to miss out. I mean, how often do you really get to see a genuine miracle? The gods don't usually warn you in advance when they're going to do one."

 _No, they don't,_ Kou thought. In his admittedly limited experience, the gods weren't showoffs. They did their work quietly and with a minimum of fuss, doing their best to pull strings without letting the humans realize what was happening around them. Announcing to the world beforehand that a miracle was approaching sounded to him like a shyster at work. That made him feel a little better. Gods made him nervous, but con men, he felt right at home with.

"That sounds interesting," he said. "Where could I find this Temple of the New Creation?"

"Just a couple of miles outside the city gates," the woman replied. "You can take a carriage most of the way there." She gave him a set of more precise directions, and Kou hastily jotted them down. Kou chatted a bit longer with her before she went off with her friend and he set off to follow his directions. The advice about taking a carriage turned out to be good - Lightflower was a much bigger city than he was used to, and there was no chance of him walking all the way there. Just to be safe, he asked the coachman to drop him off a few blocks shy of the city gate. He even walked into one of the little shops that lined the street there and loitered for a minute or two, just in case. He was nothing if not cautious when it came to these sorts of undercover assignments.

Eventually, though, there was nothing for it but to set out. He was not surprised to find that he was not the only one making this particular journey, so he let himself mingle with the crowds and tried to gauge their emotions. They struck him as being mostly curious and a little apprehensive - with good reason, he thought. No one wanted to be taken in by a false god, and no one wanted to offend a real one.

 _I'm starting to want to see this miracle, too,_ he thought. He imagined he was wise to most of the tricks a false prophet could pull. If there was any fakery going on here, he would take great pleasure in revealing it. And what a story it would make!

All the same, he was a little intimidated by the temple. He had been expecting a ramshackle affair - probably someone's old shed or abandoned barn fitted out with some pews and a makeshift altar. This didn't look makeshift. What it looked was _old_ , as though it had been summoned up from the dawn of time, all thick slabs of rough-hewn stone. It had the look of something crouched and glowering, not so much waiting to spring as sullenly watching and passing judgment. Despite the fact that the sun was still hours from setting, the close-growing pine trees cast a thick shadow over the road and the temple, creating a patch of night amid the daylight. Kou felt a chill steal over him, and he shivered.

 _It's all showmanship,_ he told himself firmly. _They set it up like this on purpose to scare people._

But if that was what they were doing, their attention hadn't extended as far as their actors. The only priest in sight was a chubby-cheeked young man who would have looked far more at home, say, selling ribbons at a nice shop than hanging around a creepy place like this. He certainly wasn't going to inspire reverence and awe in anybody. True, he was attired in somber black robes, but the color didn't suit him, and the violently pink trim somewhat undermined the effect.

 _He's not the mastermind behind this,_ Kou decided, assessing the sweat beading on the priest's upper lip. _He couldn't plan a birthday party without bungling it somehow._

Still, the priest seemed to be doing his best. He greeted his guests and invited them to take seats on the long wooden benches that served as pews. Kou did so, choosing a spot that was somewhere in the inconspicuous middle. The seats were only tree trunks split down the center and propped up on either end, polished to remove most of the splinters. They were dark with age, and creaked when he sat down. He found himself hoping that not too many big burly laborers or fat merchants wanted to sit on the same bench, or they were all likely to take a tumble.

To distract himself from that thought, he looked around at the rest of the temple, trying to take in all the details. The room was lit only by a few torches spaced evenly along the walls, giving off only just enough light for people to find their way to seats without tripping over something. A rough stone altar stood at one end of the room, with a pair of unlit candles, a stone tray that might have been for incense or some similar offering, and a spray of white flowers in a vase. He frowned a little at those. Different gods had different preferences in flowers - lavender was associated with Cerulean, for example, and roses with Vesta. Kou didn't know what these were. Some sort of star-shaped thing with five slender petals on a spray of glossy green leaves, and something else that was trumpet-shaped and grew on a vine. He wouldn't have expected _white_ flowers from someone pushing this sort of spooky atmosphere.

He gave up on trying to unravel that puzzle and turned his attention to the stained glass windows. They were the only parts of this temple that looked new. At least some of what they showed him made sense. Sun, moon, stars... that made sense for people who were calling themselves the gods of day and night. He wasn't quite sure what the thing that looked like an egg full of swirling lights was supposed to represent, but it seemed to fit the general theme. He couldn't begin to make a guess about the image of a golden axe cutting through something, or the one of what looked like a crumbling monolith of red and gold stone, but he assumed they must mean something to somebody.

He had plenty of time to mull over these mysteries while the service got underway. If there was anything special about this particular service, he couldn't see it. The priest rattled off prayers and litanies with an air that suggested he had dutifully read and memorized them but didn't quite see the point of them. That struck Kou as peculiar, too. He had been in a few temples before - he may not have been a devotee of any god in particular, but it paid to stay on everyone's good side as much as possible - and he thought he knew something about priests. The training priests went through was rigorous and required a great deal of devotion and self-sacrifice. Many who entered the training never made it past the level of initiate, and many more spent the rest of their lives as acolytes. Only the best of the best ever managed to become chief priests and manage a temple of their own. This priest ought to have been brimming with religious zeal, not mumbling and stumbling over his words.

 _Even a faker ought to at least pretend to be more enthusiastic..._

The rest of the audience was growing bored, shuffling in their seats and stifling yawns, but Kou found himself getting interested. There _was_ something peculiar going on here, and if he couldn't get to the bottom of it... well, he might as well go knocking on the door of the underworld and ask to be let in right now.

He was just contemplating whether it would be better to try to strike up a friendship with the priest after the service versus just sneaking in through a window and doing some poking around, when he got his first clue that there was more going on here than met the eye. It started with a slow reek that rolled through the room, overpowering the scents of incense and flowers. A fog began to creep across the floor in dirty brownish-gray clouds. A few people began to cough and look around accusingly for the source of the stench. Kou heard someone near him mutter, "I someone burning garbage?"

 _That's not garbage,_ Kou thought. He couldn't have said how he knew, but he remembered that smell, somewhere down in the dark place where his worst nightmares came from. It wasn't a smell that came from anywhere on the mortal plane. It smelled of decay and wet stone, and also of something else...

"Get out!" he shouted, leaping to his feet. "Something's coming! Get out!" Already he was looking around the sanctuary in a panic, trying to find some escape. The windows? No, too high up even if he could break them. Back through the front door? No, that was where _it_ was going to come from...

Then there was no more time to make decisions, because it was already upon them. It burst in through the sanctuary doors: a hideous, twisted thing like an emaciated human with glistening purple skin and the wings and legs of a cockroach. It turned a bulbous-eyed head to rake them all with its gaze. It hissed something through its misshapen jaws, but by then, everyone in the room was screaming as they tried to scramble away from the thing. Kou was probably the only one in the room who understood that what it was saying was something in the lines of, "Where is that thieving little green runt? I'll have that bushy tail of his for a duster!"

 _I wonder what that's all about?_ Kou wondered, in one tiny abstracted part of his mind. He wondered vaguely if the little green hedgehog who turned up to pester him once in a while, or at least one of his fluffier relatives, had been bothering this demon too.

"Don't panic!" the priest shouted over the din. "Everything is under control!"

Things didn't look under control. The demon, obviously not a swift thinker, was looking around with a faintly baffled expression, as if not sure what all the fuss was about. The humans, by contrast, were scrambling over each other in an effort to get as far from the thing as possible, tripping over pews and trampling each other in their panic. Kou pressed himself against a wall, at the darkest point between two torches, and kept himself very still. He wasn't sure whether he was more terrified that the thing would see him and eat him, or that it would see him and offer a recruitment pitch more aggressive than the little imps had used.

 _If you're paying attention,_ he prayed to his own personal meddlesome god, _then you'll get me out of this mess you've gotten me into!_

The demon flicked out a spiny arm, and a woman shrieked as she dove out of its way. The woman next to her seized someone's abandoned walking stick and took a swing at the creature's face. It caught the stick in its mandibles and crushed the solid oak into splinters. It lumbered towards them, and the women screamed and clung to each other. Kou shivered.

It took a moment for him to realize he wasn't shivering at the plight of the poor women - he was shivering because the room was getting colder. It was getting darker, too. The flames of the torches had gone blue and faint. The demon paused and looked around nervously, giving Kou the impression that it had only just now realized what sort of place it had wandered into. It hissed and began backing slowly away.

It was already too late. In the next moment, there was a flash of golden flame at one end of the aisle, then a burst of icy blue sparks on the other. The demon was now hemmed in on either side by a pair of... Kou blinked. He took off his glasses, polished them on the hem of his shirt, put them on and looked again.

 _Now, those are what I call gods!_ was his first thought. Yes, he knew intellectually that his mysterious friend had to be a god, but the point was that he never really looked or acted like a god. These two were unmistakable. They glowed with their own radiant auras, one cold and silvery as the moon, one hot and brilliant as the sun. Their bearings were erect and regal, almost bored, as if a demon in their temple mattered no more to them than a dust bunny.

"Well, well," said one. "Look what we have here. A demon, on our property."

"A demon lord, by the look of it," said the other. He leaned a little closer, taking a leisurely look. "The Demon of Distraction, if I'm not mistaken. The master of useless industry and counterproductive activity, arch-nemesis of the god Cerulean. How is old Sleepyhead these days?"

The demon snarled out something garbled that sounded insulting.

"Really?" said the sun god, in tones of mild surprise. "Me, I always vaguely liked him. He never caused any trouble, at the very least."

The moon god took a few steps closer to the demon, who backed away from him with a hiss - and then jerked the other way again as it got too close to the sun god's fiery heat.

"You, on the other hand," said Luna, "are a pest, and ugly too. What do you say, Brother? Should we escort him out politely or forcibly?"

"Well, he didn't come in politely," Sol replied, "so I say we don't send him out politely." He extended a languid hand. "Would you care to do the honors?"

"With pleasure," Luna replied.

The demon was looking panicky now. It flared its wings and raised its many arms, causing purple mist to gather around it. Luna made a face of pure disdain and flourished one hand. A bolt of blue-white light leapt from his fingertips, encasing the demon in a shell of ice. Then Sol flicked his fingers, and fireballs burst forth to swoop around the room and crash into the demonic ice sculpture from several directions at once. There was a tremendous flash and a burst of purple steam, and the demon exploded into fragments that vaporized as they fell.

The room was dead silent. It seemed as though no one was even breathing. The two gods looked around, radiating satisfaction.

"You all should remember this," said Sol. "We are the greatest of the created gods. There is no one who can stand against us, mortal or immortal. The time of our rule is at hand. You can choose to stand against us, or..."

His gaze went pointedly to the scorched spot in the aisle where the demon had been.

Luna smiled brightly at the assembled company. "You all be good. We'll be watching..."

Then they were gone. The stillness held for a few moments longer, and then slowly, the people began to stir again. A few quiet murmurs gradually rose into a roar of excited conversation. The wide-eyed priest, who had been watching all this unfold while cowering behind the altar, now strutted boldly forwards and began chatting with his congregation, soliciting offerings and filling their ears with tales of other amazing things that Sol and Luna had done.

 _Uh-huh,_ Kou thought, as he edged closer to listen in. He had a sneaky feeling that he'd heard some of those stories before, on dull nights around the local pub's fireplace. _And just how convenient is this, that everyone got lured in here with a promise of a special service, and then a demon just happens to show up so these two can put on a magic show? Mighty big coincidence._ No, something screwy was going on around here. He knew a setup when he saw one.

There were two ways he could have handled the situation. He could have sent a message off to his patron, letting him know everything Kou had witnessed and allowing him to take over. Or... Kou could dig a little deeper, and find out what was _really_ going on here.

And really, when you put it like that, there really wasn't a choice at all.

"Time to start digging," he decided, and slipped out the door.

* * *

It was dinnertime in the Heavenly City. Arima wove his way through the throngs of people in what was the busiest part of the palace, trying to avoid running into anyone. Some gods might skip having breakfast or lunch in the great hall, preferring to dine alone in the comfort of their own rooms, or in the company of a few friends, but practically everyone showed up for dinners. Even the little gods - the various crossroads guardians and nature spirts - and all the various human attendants who lived outside the palace itself were invited to come and join the feast. And it _was_ a feast. The tables of the great hall continually refreshed themselves, serving up an endless variety of good things from all over the world, including things that didn't exist yet in the mortal world. Even now, Arima was sometimes overwhelmed by the sheer variety, though he imagined that after he'd been living there for a few centuries he might come to appreciate it more. For now, he concentrated on working his way trough the crowd to the table where his friends were sitting.

He waved hello to a few acquaintances as he worked his way across the room. He noted in passing that a couple of his old friends were putting their heads together over a map, apparently contemplating a new adventure. He had to smile at that. Uriya was bursting with pride at what an important city his once tiny domain had become, but it was also true that ever since Gora had relaxed the strictures on where crossroads gods could travel, he had developed a case of wanderlust. Even now, every so often, he and his consort would pack up and disappear for a few months, off to somewhere they had never been before. Just now, it seemed that one of them had heard of a ship bound for the Isle of Smoke, and they were now plotting to get themselves taken aboard as members of the crew. Arima couldn't help but be amused. At least Atsushi never minded looking after his hometown while its guardian spirit was elsewhere.

 _I suppose as long as they're having fun,_ he mused. To someone who spent his all his working hours finding directions for people, it was interesting for him to realize that sometimes even not having a direction could be a direction. Those two were never happier than when they were setting out into the unknown just to see what was there.

He reached his usual table at last and slid into the empty spot next to Atsushi. The rest of their little group - consisting at the moment of Atsushi, Kinshiro, Ryuu, and Akoya - were already eating, but they obligingly scooted over to make more room for him and began passing him plates.

"Sorry I'm late," said Arima. "I was thinking."

"We all have a bit on our minds as of late," said Kinshiro.

"Where is everyone else?" Arima asked, as he helped himself to the salmon.

"Io had business to attend to tonight," said Akoya, with a resigned shrug. "He is a very important man, after all."

"En's just late," Atsushi supplied with a grin. "You know how he is."

"Ah, well. Something to look forward to," said Arima. He casually studied the contents of a teapot. "Hm, what have we got today? Jasmine green? Just what I needed."

"It was raspberry a minute ago," said Ryuu. "I think the teapots around here just like you."

Kinshiro smiled. "If they do, it's probably for a good reason."

They good-natured ribbing continued for a while longer. Arima gradually relaxed. He was still uneasy in his mind about what had been happening lately, but it was good to be reminded that he had so much support around him.

His good mood was somewhat flattened when the usually amiable En came storming in, his face set in a scowl.

"Someone destroyed my demon," he said peevishly, dropping into a vacant seat.

Kinshiro looked up from his meal, surprised. "I beg your pardon?"

"My demon," said En. "The Demon of Distraction. My own personal arch-nemesis. Someone destroyed him."

"You mean that big purple cockroachy thing?" Ryuu asked. "I thought you hated him. You should be glad he's gone."

"Yeah, but he was _my demon_ ," said En. "I was used to him. Now they're just going to make someone else the Demon of Distraction and I'm going to have to get used to it all over again. I'd had that other one for _years_."

"Maybe if you had dealt with it sooner..." said Aurite.

En shrugged. "What for? They'd have sent in a new one anyway, and I'd still have the same problem. Anyway, that's not the point," he concluded. "The _point_ is that _somebody destroyed my demon._ Can we focus on my problem, please?"

"And what exactly is your problem?" Ryuu asked.

"Well, for starters," said En, "I wasn't the one who destroyed the thing."

Everyone went quiet as they considered the significance that statement.

"So who did, then?" Akoya asked at last.

"That," said En, "is the big question, isn't it? I mean, if I didn't do it, and nobody around here did it... I haven't heard of any heroes cropping up lately, have you?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Right," said En. "And it would take a god or a hero to take out a demon that powerful."

Akoya pushed some grapes around on his plate. "You don't suppose it could be _them_ , do you?"

"You mean, Sol and Luna?" Ryuu asked. "What would they go around killing your pet monster for? You'd think they'd have other things to do with their time than to deal with other people's problems for them."

"There's no predicting what those two will do," said Kinshiro disapprovingly. "For all we know, the demon may have just come sniffing around to see who they were and they obliterated him for the fun of it."

En thought that over. "Not sure that really sounds like them. It's been a while since I've seen them, but they always struck me as being pretty goal-oriented. Calculating. Not really the kind to lash out for no reason. How sure are we that they really are loose? Has anyone actually seen them face to face? Anyone who'd actually recognize them, I mean."

"Not that I know of," said Kinshiro, "but I went to Seven Pillars and checked the seal. It's definitely broken and empty. They're out there, somewhere, and the maddening thing is that I can't find them. I ought to be able to find anything that powerful and dangerous, but I can't, and I don't understand why."

"That's strange," said Arima. "You'd think something like that would show up clearly. Can't we just keep an eye on whatever their affinity is for and wait for them to show up? Or even set a trap for them somehow?" If there was one thing he knew about gods by now, it was that none of them could defy their own natures for very long. That was why a being like En who technically didn't need sleep was usually found dozing, and why someone like Akoya who by his nature couldn't look anything but splendid still couldn't help playing with makeups and moisturizers. That was one reason why Io wasn't there right now with his friends and lovers - as a god of the underworld, he was physically tied to his realm and couldn't be away from it for more than a few days at a stretch.

"That's just it," said Kinshiro. "They aren't affiliated with anything in particular."

Arima looked at him blankly. This news had not gotten to him before now. "They _what?_ "

"They have no affinity," said Kinshiro patiently. "They're gods, but they aren't gods _of_ anything. Gora gave them responsibility over the sun and moon, but that was mostly just something to appease them."

"That's impossible," said Arima, shaking his head. "A god has to have some affinity or it wouldn't be a god."

"Well, it happened," said Kinshiro.

"Why didn't you tell me?" asked Arima. He was growing agitated. If gods were compelled to do their own work, he felt that compulsion as much as anyone, and his nature was to find paths for the lost. Telling him that there were two whole gods out there in the universe who were lost and directionless was almost more than he could stand. It was bad enough thinking they might need him for some specific reason, but to realize they had literally existed for centuries without any direction at all... "You should have let me know about these two right away, before they got out of their seal. I might have done something."

Kinshiro frowned a little. "I don't know... these aren't your everyday sort of people, Arima. Humans, gods, the Old Ones... they were all created for some purpose. Everyone but these two. They were mistakes. You can't expect them to behave like everyone else."

"I don't believe that," said Arima. "Everything has a purpose."

"But what if they don't?" Ryuu asked. "What if that's what was making you feel so sick when they broke their seal - because they're something opposed to your nature? If something with no purpose - something that _couldn't_ have a purpose - existed, wouldn't that hurt you?"

Arima frowned. "I don't know... maybe."

"Don't get too close to them," said Kinshiro, his voice surprisingly gentle. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you just because you were trying to help."

"Don't worry," said Arima. "I'll be very careful. I don't want anything to happen to me either."

And yet, now that the idea had taken root in his mind, he couldn't forget about it. He knew it was going to eat at him until he finally did something about it.

 _I need to see them face to face,_ he thought. _That's the only way I'll know for sure._ Once he knew, his course would be clear. If he could, he would find a purpose for them, the purpose they had been living without since practically the dawn of time, just waiting for him to come along and reveal it to them.

And if he couldn't do that, he would destroy them himself.

* * *

Katari sat in the little empty room Ouso had given to him and contemplated sheets of paper. They had a lot of writing on them. Some of it was his, some that of his host. Most of it, in fact, was Ouso's. He had been a very busy little priest.

Busy, and perhaps not terribly productive, depending on how he looked at matters. Katari knew a lot about priests from personal experience. They tended their temples, they tutored the next generation of priests, they led services and offered assistance and guidance to their congregations. The ones who worked in practical trades offered their services, sometimes for free and sometimes in exchange for donations to their temples. Katari wasn't quite sure what sort of solace or service a priest of the sun and moon might offer, but given that the twin gods declared that they were the gods of _everything_ , one might assume they had enough work to keep a whole army of priests busy from dawn to dusk.

But not this one, apparently. Katari couldn't imagine how a man who was supposedly carrying out his priestly duties had found time to write all these stories, but apparently this one had. Katari had spent the better part of a morning reading them all. He had mixed feelings about them. On the one hand, he had always considered himself a man of exquisite taste, and there was no doubt that this work was awful. It was riddled with cliches and logical leaps, the characters were as shallow as a creek in a drought, and their dialogue was both nothing any living human would ever say and the kind of thing Katari had heard a million times in half-baked plays. In short, it was the kind of thing he ought to have felt himself honor-bound to toss into the fireplace for the protection of his people.

So why couldn't he stop reading it?

Probably, he thought, it was the same thing that had driven Ouso to write all this in the first place. To him, at least, these hackneyed old plot devices weren't stale and dull. He truly loved them, reveled in them, adored them with a fervency that even a god could admire. Katari found he did admire it. In Ouso's hands, these worn-out old tropes showed him why they had survived the test of time. There was a beauty there, for those who had the eyes to see it.

 _And I think I who needed to._

"Now, where did that page go?" he muttered, sifting through the scree of pages on the table. Ah, there it was. Now, where had he left off? Ah, right here, just as the plucky young heroine was speaking her defiant speech to her cold-hearted father...

"Tagaru, are you in here?" Ouso called out.

Katari twitched. He immediately dropped his pen and tried to bury the pages he'd been writing on under the rest of the chaos. A few pages slipped onto the floor. Katari scrambled for them before giving up.

"I'm here," he called back.

Ouso bustled in. "There you are! I've been looking all over for you. You were so quiet I was starting to think you had, well..."

"Wandered off?" Katari supplied. "Gone somewhere else? Been eaten by a demon?"

Ouso looked uncomfortable. "Well, no, I didn't think that, at least."

Katari didn't press the subject. He hadn't been in the congregation, thank goodness, when the twin gods had put on their explosive little show. He doubted they would have cared that he was there - he had a sense, in fact, that they would have thought him taking refuge in their own temple was funny - but he had been terribly afraid that they might decide to gloat over him and give away his secret. The last thing he wanted right now was for anyone to know that he was a dishonored god trapped in human form. It wasn't just that it was humiliating, either, although it certainly was that. It was more that he had no doubt that they'd find some way to spin the situation to make it seem as though they were responsible for him losing his divinity. Katari didn't want anyone getting the idea that these two were capable of bringing down gods that way. If a rumor like that got out, they would have the entire world flocking to them in no time.

"I've just been here," he said. "I was reading over some of your writing."

Ouso lit up. "Did you like it?"

"Yes," said Katari truthfully. "I enjoyed reading it. It was enlightening."

Ouso positively glowed. "That's really nice of you to say. Most people never bother to listen."

"They're missing out, then," said Katari.

Ouso was only half listening. His gaze had strayed to the papers on the floor.

"Oh!" he said, dismayed. "Some fell down. Let me get those."

He dropped to the floor, moving awkwardly in his clumsy robes as he scrambled to pick up the stray sheets. Katari made a move to stand, but Ouso waved him away.

"No, it's all right, I can do it," he said, in the manner of a man who hadn't had a lot of jobs in his lifetime that he could do. Then he picked up a sheet and paused to stare at it. "Wait, this isn't mine..."

"It's, ah, mine," said Katari. "I was writing."

"Your handwriting is beautiful," said Ouso distractedly. Katari could see his eyes moving rapidly as he scanned the lines. "What is this, though? It seems familiar..."

"Well, I'd been reading your stories," Katari admitted, "and I got so caught up in them... I guess you could say I was inspired. I wanted to have a go at putting them into verse."

"This is amazing," Ouso admitted. "I didn't write this story half so well."

The look on his face made Katari want to hit himself. Without thinking, he did something he'd never done before in all his long life: he got down on his knees on the floor. He put his hands on Ouso's shoulders, then moved one to tuck it under Ouso's chin and bring his eyes up away from the offending page.

"No, no, you're taking this wrong," Katari said firmly. "You listen to me. You have a _gift_ Ouso. You have an amazing imagination, and even more, you have a kind of passion for this work that not one person in a thousand does. It burns through everything you do and say. I've never had that kind of passion for anything before. All my life, I thought poetry was all about... about getting the meter and rhyme correctly, about having the fanciest sorts of metaphors and the floweriest language. But everything you've written... it's got a power to move people that I've never had. If I could harness half that power... well, I can't, but I think if I spent enough time with you, maybe I could learn. Do you understand? All I've done is take your ideas and rearrange them a little. You're the one with the talent."

Ouso stared at him, his face registering disbelief. Then his wide blue-green eyes began to fill with tears.

"Do you really mean it?" he asked.

"I really do," Katari answered seriously. "You have... a beauty unlike any I've ever known."

"Tagaru..." That was as far as he got before the waterworks started. Katari awkwardly pulled the young man against his shoulder and let him cry.

 _What a fool I've been,_ Katari thought, stroking Ouso's golden hair. It was surprisingly soft, he realized abstractedly, and smelled faintly of water lilies. A lifetime of serving in Pearlite's train hadn't completely left him unaffected. _Pearlite. I suppose I owe him an apology. He was right all along._ When he thought back to the poet he had praised so highly and that Pearlite had so thoroughly disparaged, he could hardly remember why he had thought the work was so excellent. Compared to Ouso's clumsy, passionate creations, the other man's work seemed sterile and shallow.

Well, he'd never get a chance to apologize to Pearlite now, he thought. Not until someone decided it was safe to turn him back into a god, which would probably be never. He thought about that: never to sit in his temple listening to people recite odes in his glory, never to feast at the high table in the Palace of the Gods, never again to possess the power and immortality that was his birthright.

 _I don't really care. I've found something wonderful here. I want to stay and learn more._

"You really think I'm beautiful?" asked Ouso, voice still thick with tears.

"You," said Katari simply, "are the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered. If I could, I would stay here with you forever just for the pleasure of hearing your stories."

Ouso sniffled. "Nobody's ever said anything like that to me before."

"Well, they should," said Katari. Impulsively, he said, "Ouso, you shouldn't be here."

"What do you mean?" Ouso asked.

"I mean, these gods of yours... they aren't your true gods and you know it. This isn't where you belong. You have a gift that's being wasted here, and these two don't even care. They're just using you because they knew you were desperate. You should give it up and come away from here."

Ouso shook his head. "But where could I go? What could I do? At least I'm wanted here."

"You're just being used," Katari repeated. "They could find someone else to do your job just as well. They don't really care about you. I do. We could leave together and find somewhere else to be - we can start over."

"I don't know," said Ouso. He looked down at his ill-fitting robes, then at the heap of papers on the desk. "Do you really think we could?"

"I'm sure we could," said Katari, with more confidence than he felt. That didn't matter. He might not be able to call on his godly powers like he once could, but he could still put his facility for words to good purpose. "We can work together - you can give me the ideas and I'll write them up into poetry. We can earn our way. Wouldn't you be happier doing that than all this?"

"Well..."

Katari held his breath. He could see Ouso wavering, weighing a secure position doing something he didn't enjoy and wasn't particularly good at against an uncertain future that only _might_ give him the chance to do what he loved.

 _Go for it,_ Katari urged him silently. _Put that passion you feel to good use._

"You'd stay with me?" Ouso asked.

"Of course," said Katari. "As long as you want me."

Ouso nodded. Katari saw him straighten his spine and square his shoulders, and felt a surge of relief.

 _I knew he could do it._ He began to smile.

"Well," said Ouso, "in that case..."

A cold wind blew through the room. All the papers flung themselves into the air and flew about like a swarm of startled birds. The candles went out, and the fire in the fireplace was instantly reduced to smoke and ash. The room was suddenly very dark, and in that darkness, there were voices.

"Well, what do we have here?" Sol hissed.

"A troublemaker," said Luna. "I _knew_ it was a bad idea to let him stay here."

A tiny spark began flickering in the darkness. It grew and expanded until it became a shaft of brilliant starry light, shining down on the matched figures of Luna and Sol. They were smiling, but it was the sort of smile that suggested that everyone else in the room was about to _stop_ smiling very shortly.

"My... my lords!" Ouso blurted.

"Oh, don't give us that," said Sol. "Did you really think we wouldn't overhear you planning to abandon us?"

"Well, I, um..." Ouso was trembling now, his whole face pale with terror.

"So much for loyalty," Luna muttered. "We should have known something like this was going to happen."

"It isn't... it's just that..." Miraculously, Ouso seemed to find his nerve. He took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and said, "I just don't think I'm cut out for this work. There must be someone else who could do it better."

"Are you questioning our judgment?" asked Sol dangerously.

"Never mind him," said Luna, his tone ominously light by comparison. "You can't expect him to be loyal to us. After all, we're just the gods of everything in general, which is the same as being gods of nothing in particular. We're hardly good enough for the likes of him, are we?"

"It isn't that," Ouso blurted. "It's only that, well..."

"That your loyalties lie elsewhere," Luna completed. "Isn't that always the way? You offer a man everything his heart could desire, and he decides to restrict himself to just one little thing. Or just one person." His malevolent red gaze lit on Katari, who flinched. "Or perhaps... one god?"

"God? What do you mean?" Ouso asked. "There isn't any other..."

"Quiet," Sol snapped. "We'll deal with you in a minute."

He rounded on Katari. Somehow, without anyone seeming to move, Katari felt as though he'd been herded away from Ouso's side and backed into a corner, with the two twin gods between him and his friend, and a solid stone wall behind him. If he'd still been in full possession of his powers, he'd have phased straight through that wall and been far away in the time it took to blink... except that this time he wouldn't. He couldn't leave poor hapless Ouso in the hands of these two. He _couldn't_.

"Thought you'd lure him away from us, did you?" asked Sol. "What is this, revenge?"

"No," said Katari. "It isn't like you think..."

"Don't lie to us," Luna hissed. "Really, Katari, I didn't think you were this petty. I suppose we should have known, though. Everything you've done the whole time we've known you has been petty."

Peering between Luna and Sol's shoulders, Katari could see Ouso's face crease in confusion.

"Katari?" he murmured. "But I thought his name was Tagaru. Katari is the name... the name of..."

"The god of poetry," Luna supplied. "Who is a complete idiot when it comes to anything beyond making two words rhyme."

"Which the other gods seem to have realized," said Sol. He flashed a vindictive smile at Katari. "What happened? Did they strip you of your divinity when they figured out what you'd done? What a shame. I was hoping they'd slap a seal on you the way they did to us. That would have been _much_ more fitting."

"The time will come," said Luna consolingly. "Maybe someday we'll come back and put seals on _all_ of them. But turning them human is an interesting idea, too. There are things you can do to humans that you can't do to gods."

Wonderingly, Ouso was saying, "But he's not a god. He _can't_ be a god, can he?"

"Not anymore, he's not," said Sol, not even bothering to turn around. "You're right, Brother. I'm sure we can think of something entertaining. It certainly is a lot easier to hurt humans than it is to hurt gods."

With a flourish, he produced a handful of fire, like a tiny sun glowing in his hand. He began leaning closer, and Katari tried to scramble backwards, though the wall of the temple was already at his back. Sol continued moving closer, until Katari could smell his hair beginning to frizzle and his skin had gone tight from the heat.

"What shall I do with this?" Sol asked, almost casually. "Burn that pretty face, so our little priest won't find you quite so appealing? Or maybe I'll burn out that treacherous tongue of yours..."

 _I need a miracle,_ Katari thought distractedly. What a stupid thing to want. He was a god - he should have had any number of miracles at his disposal. But even at full power, there was nothing he could have done to put that fire out. The best he could have ever done was to run away from it. And now he had betrayed the gods. They weren't likely to send a miracle for him even if he asked for one. Even so...

 _Epinard, god of mercy, patron of those who have nowhere else to turn, hear me. I'm so sorry for what I've done. Please spare me, or if you won't do that, at least spare Ouso..._

A hand reached out and gripped his jaw, trying to force his mouth to open. Katari closed his eyes and resigned himself to a lot of pain.

That was why he didn't see the miracle happen.

It wasn't a big miracle, as these things went. It was about four inches long and one inch thick, and was made entirely of gray stone. It _was_ a stone, a nice big one, perfect for throwing, and someone had just hurled it with some force through the library window. The spray of glass glittered almost like magic when it passed through the nimbus of blue light that surrounded the gods. It landed with a soft, almost inaudible thud on the carpet. Luna, Sol, and Ouso all turned to stare at it, then slowly shifted their attention to the window that had just broken.

There was a man standing outside the window. He was looking in at them, eyes wide behind his glasses, as if he couldn't quite believe his own daring. Then he gave a what-the-hell little shrug and plastered on a grin.

"Well, hello there!" he said brightly. "So sorry to interrupt, but it looked to me as though things were getting a bit out of hand in there, and I thought I'd try to do a little something to break the tension. So," he added, "would any of you like to subscribe to the newspaper?"


	7. The Conflict of the Gods

_This was not one of my brighter ideas._

That was what the upper part of Kou's brain was telling him, and it certainly had good reasons. Two of them were staring at him now, their strange reddish eyes fixed on him as though he were a particularly large cockroach that had turned up on the pristine white tablecloth of a royal banquet. He had seen what they had done to that other cockroach, and he wouldn't be at all surprised if they were planning to do the same thing to him. And yet...

And yet a part of him was exhilarated. This, something inside him was saying, was what he had been born to do. The _real_ him wasn't the model citizen, the public servant who collected and distributed the news for the good of the general populace. No, his true self was the kind of man who smilingly invited people to try their luck with the marble and the three cups, who persuaded people that he had a bridge in Cerulean Bay he'd like to sell them, that he had never played poker before so go easy on him, okay? He had assumed the mantle of a respectable law-abiding citizen because it had seemed like the safest thing to do at the time, and because anyway Masuya was basically a good person and he'd want Kou to do the right thing and so certain sacrifices had to be made. That didn't change the fact that some people were just born con men, and that part of him had been going wild with inactivity. Even if he was about to die in a particularly spectacular fashion right about now, he couldn't deny that it was probably going to be a fun way to go.

 _They keep telling me I used to be a demon lord, and a demon lord is practically a god, just from the other direction, so by that logic I ought to be a match for anybody. Let's see how right they are._

"And who," said Luna slowly, "are you supposed to be?"

Kou grinned his biggest, brightest grin. "I'm Kou Kinosaki, editor of the Wintertree Free Press, and I was wondering if I could just talk to you a moment about the benefits of subscribing."

Sol was blinking at him. "Am I wrong, Brother, or does there seem to be a madman on the loose?"

"Either that or an idiot," Luna replied.

"I assure you that I'm neither," said Kou airily. He was falling into his stride. He had given this speech a thousand times before, frequently to customers nearly as tough as these two. "The newspaper is a remarkable new innovation, and if you'd just give me a moment to explain I think you'll agree that it's something no well-informed citizen should do without."

Both gods were staring at him. The chubby priest was staring at him. Even the man who was apparently a god-made-mortal was giving him a blank look. Well, good.

"Do you not understand what's going on here?" Luna huffed. "We are _gods_."

"All the more reason to subscribe to the paper!" said Kou cheerfully. He really was enjoying this. This was a lesson he had picked up from dealing with important people: the careful balance between reasonableness and absurdity. Act too reasonable, and people would assume you were open to being reasoned with and try to argue with you. Too absurd, and people would get angry with you and throw you out on your ear. Ah, but if you could hit that sweet spot between the two, you had them. They would listen to you just to try to figure out what on earth you were talking about, and by the time they had figured it out, you had practically won them over already. These two might be gods, but the principle still held. Gods were just magical beings with way more power than was probably good for them. They weren't omniscient.

"Gods aren't omniscient," he said, embroidering on that theme. "They can only perceive what lies within their purview, and then only if they're lucky enough to be paying attention at the time. For you two, it's even harder, because you're the gods of everything, aren't you? But you can't be everywhere and pay attention to everything at once. That's where the newspaper comes in handy. I patiently gather up all the information you might have missed, write it all down and hand it to you so you can peruse it at your leisure. Surely you can see the advantages."

Somewhere in the background, Kou could see movement. The man - what was his name? Tagaru? Katari? - who had been pinned against the wall was staring to move a safe distance away from the twin gods. The priest was inching ever so slowly towards one of the shelves.

 _Get out of here,_ Kou urged silently. _I can't keep this up forever, you know!_

But he didn't let that show on his face. He kept grinning as he watched Luna and Sol share a befuddled look.

"I honestly can't tell if he's serious or not," said Luna.

"He's a lunatic," said Sol flatly. "I say we get rid of him."

"If you want to get rid of me," said Kou quickly, "the easiest way to do it would be to buy a subscription."

"And why shouldn't we just destroy you where you stand?" asked Luna. "Or perhaps turn you into something useful, like a coat rack? Because we can change people into things, you know. We used to be quite good at it, back in the day."

"I remember the first time," said Sol, a bit dreamily. "He was always worried about when things happened, so we turned him into an hourglass."

The priest had made it to the shelf, and had closed his hands around one of the largest, thickest books. Kou hoped he wasn't about to try something stupid like throwing it at someone's head.

"Because," he said hastily, "if you just destroy me, you won't end up with anything useful at all. If you pay me, you'll get a newspaper subscription, and you have to admit that's probably of more use to you than a hat rack. You aren't even wearing hats."

There was another of those blank pauses.

"We _could_ be," said Sol, without much conviction.

"That is entirely beside the..." Luna began.

The priest threw the book. He did not, Kou was thankful to see, try throwing it at anyone's head. He did throw it to the other side of the room, where it smashed into a glass-fronted cabinet full of scrolls with a colossal shattering sound. Then everything started happening at once. The two gods whirled around to see what had made the sudden noise. While their backs were turned, the priest and his friend made a run for it. Kou turned and fled into the darkness that surrounded the temple.

 _That's as heroic as I get!_ he told himself as he ran. Legs churning, he nevertheless managed to reach under his tunic and pull out a piece of paper, upon which he had written a full report of everything he had seen that afternoon. It had prudently been folded up into a nicely pointed shape, what children called a "paper falcon" for its habit of gliding long distances when thrown before running out of momentum and suddenly swooping to the ground like a bird stooping on its prey. He hoped he'd done a good enough job folding this one. He hoped it would work.

"I commend this offering to the gods!" he shouted, and threw it as hard as he could. It sailed off into the blackness of the forest. He watched it disappear, and found himself wishing he'd asked his patron's name, after all. He would have liked to have known who to address a message to.

 _It will be okay,_ he told himself. _I'm not the one who betrayed them. They'll go after the priest and his buddy first. By the time they think to come looking for me, I'll be long gone..._

There was a flash in front of him, a burst of sudden warm light, and Sol was standing in front of him. His smile was warm, in the way an instrument of torture that had been heated over coals was warm.

"Hello," he said sweetly. "Did you forget there were two of us?"

* * *

"Arima, wait up."

Arima didn't wait. It didn't make any difference. Atsushi put on an extra burst of speed and managed to catch up to his old friend.

"I'm all right," said Arima.

Atsushi frowned. "You don't have to lie to me, Arima. I've known you too long to believe it anyway."

Arima turned around and gave Atsushi a small smile.

"I suppose that's so," he agreed.

Atsushi smiled reassuringly in return. He had noticed that Arima had been oddly silent all through dinner, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. In someone as even-tempered as Arima, any deviation from the norm was enough to attract attention, and his agitation when he'd realized the two sealed gods might need his help had been obvious. Akoya and Ryuu had let it slide, and Kinshiro would never have suspected Arima of being dishonest with him, but Atsushi was too familiar with human failings to be misled.

"You really are worried about them, aren't you?" he asked gently.

"I am," Arima admitted. "I can feel it pulling at me. They need someone to set them in the right path, and I might be the only person who can find someone who has been lost so long and strayed so far. I have to try."

"And if they've been lost too long to find their way back?" Atsushi asked carefully. He watched Arima's expression as it went from slightly offended to calculating.

Then suddenly, Arima smiled.

"You specialize in helping people who have gone too far to find their way back on their own," he said. "If I need your help, I'll ask you."

Atsushi grinned back. "That's what I thought you'd say."

"Then you will help me?" Arima asked. "Even if Kinshiro doesn't like it?"

"I do a lot of things Kinshiro doesn't like," said Atsushi. "That's what I'm for. We all know what happens if he gets to have his own way all the time."

"That is how it all started, isn't it," Arima murmured. And of course it was. The whole reason Atsushi had met Kinshiro and Arima and become a god, and helped pave the way for Arima to become a god in his own time, was because Kinshiro had needed someone he would listen to when they told him he was in the wrong. It was funny how often a god of justice and order could get completely off-track.

"He'll forgive us once he understands it's all to the good," said Atsushi confidently. "He always does."

"We've never conspired over something quite as big as this," Arima pointed out. "He really, _really_ doesn't like Luna and Sol."

"Tell me about it," said Atsushi. "But he is fair. He has to be. All we have to do is..."

He trailed off. Something in his pocket was vibrating, as if he had a jar of wasps buzzing around in there. Slightly alarmed, he fished inside the pocket and pulled out _Inquiry_. It was fluttering its covers open and shut so rapidly that it looked like it was going to fly away. As soon as Atsushi had it settled in his hands, it flipped itself open on its own to show Atsushi a page of writing in a familiar hand.

 _I've found the trouble you were looking for. There's a pair of gods calling themselves Luna and Sol, and they've set up their headquarters in a temple they're calling the Temple of the New Creation, just outside of Lightflower..._

Atsushi's eyes traveled swiftly over the report. The good thing about using Kou as his operative was that Kou was a very good reporter, and knew how to present the facts in a concise, organized fashion. Almost before he'd finished reading, Atsushi had snapped the book shut and grabbed Arima by the arm.

"Come on," he said. "I know where Luna and Sol are. If we move fast, we might still catch them."

"Right," said Arima. He made a quick gesture with his hands, and suddenly he was holding his favorite weapon, a length of fine but strong silver chain, with weights on either end in the shape of closed water lily buds. Something must have showed on Atsushi's face, because he smiled grimly. "My motto is, believe in the best outcome, but go in armed."

"Fine," said Atsushi. "Then we're armed. Let's go."

And the two of them vanished.

 _Sorry, Kinshiro,_ Atsushi thought, _but this is something we have to do. It will be okay. You'll see._

* * *

Kou did not like the way he was being smiled at. He had seen a lot of insincere smiles in his time, mostly from people who were explaining that really, they hadn't got a bit of change on them right now. This was definitely the most insincere smile he'd ever seen. If it were any sharper, he'd have been bleeding just from having it pointed at him.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he blustered.

"Oh, I'm sure you don't," said Sol, looking down at him. How was he doing that? He couldn't possibly be that much taller than Kou himself, but somehow he loomed. Kou tried to back away, but the god's hand lashed out and caught him by the collar.

"No, not yet," said Sol. "First you're going to tell me who you're working for."

"I really don't know..."

"You're working for one of the gods, aren't you?" Sol demanded. "I can smell the power on you, but it's not a signature I know. Really, there are far too many gods these days. Aurite's doing, I suppose, always wanting someone in charge of everything. So? Who is he?"

"I _don't_ know!" Kou insisted. "I'd tell you if I could, but I can't! He never told me his name and I was never crazy enough to ask!"

"At least you admit you're working for him," said Sol. "Well, fat lot of good he's doing you. He can't even be bothered to show up and protect you, can he? Some patron he is."

Kou was forced to admit, if only internally, that he'd been having similar thoughts himself.

 _But he never asked me to go throwing rocks at other gods. I came up with that idea myself._ Even so, a little divine intervention would be very welcome right now.

"Now, what shall I do with you?" Sol mused. "You are a... how do you say? A town crier?"

"I publish a newspaper," said Kou loftily.

"Same thing," said Sol. "What I'm thinking is that you could be useful to us. We could use some help getting the word out about our return. This temple of ours isn't growing fast enough to suit me. So? How about it? Agree to help us, spread the word of our arrival around, persuade people to give up worshiping these other gods and turn to us instead, and I'd be willing to intervene with my brother on your behalf. Otherwise..." He held up his free hand, and brilliant yellow light flared there. Kou could feel the heat of it burning against his face like a furnace blast.

"What do I get out of it?" he blurted.

Sol's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"What do I get out of it?" Kou repeated. His mind was racing wildly. "I mean, sure, you could kill me now, but Aurite is still the judge of the dead. I figure if I die in the service of my patron god, that makes me a martyr, and I'm pretty much guaranteed a spot in the Land of the Blessed Dead. Maybe even a post as an attendant, if my god friend decides he likes me. What are you going to offer?"

Sol scowled. "Who says I'm going to kill you right away? I _could_ just burn bits off of you, one at a time, slowly, and then leave you to live the rest of your life without various portions of your anatomy."

"You're not exactly making me want to join your side, you know," said Kou. "You ought to be trying to sweet-talk me if you want me to sing your praises to the general populace. I mean, at least this other god gave me bucketfuls of money when he wanted me to do something."

Sol laughed at that. "Oh, is that all that it takes? Well, I'm sure we could come up with something in that line. Our temple is already generating revenue, and there will be more as the congregation grows. What would it take to buy your loyalty? A thousand in gold? Five thousand?"

"Well..."

The honest truth was that Kou thought about it. He played the scenario out in his mind - enough money in one swoop to keep himself and his husband comfortable for the rest of their lives. All he had to do was serve a couple of gods, and really, was that so bad? One god was as good as another, right? It wasn't as though these were _demons_ , right? All right, they were sneaky, cunning, lying bastards, but if he was going to be honest, he'd have to admit that the same descriptors could apply to him. He might be happier working for these two than he'd even been working for... whatever his name was.

But he thought about the poet-god, pinned against the wall as this grinning creature threatened to burn his tongue out. He tried to imagine how he'd explain to Masuya how he'd ever gotten mixed up in something like that. Masuya always believed - really and truly believed - that Kou was a good person, despite all evidence to the contrary. Kou didn't believe in any gods in particular, not enough to devote his life to them, but he did believe in the love of his husband.

"I think," he said, "that I have a professional responsibility to report the truth as I see it."

Sol raised an eyebrow. "And what do you see the truth as?"

"At the moment? I think the truth is that I'd take up that lousy goldfish's offer before I agreed to serve you."

For a moment, Sol looked utterly confused. Probably, Kou thought, he didn't know the history involving the demon fish. The confusion quickly faded, however, to be replaced by snarling fury.

"I've had all I can take of your backtalk," he growled. "That's it, I'm shutting you up permanently."

The fire in his hand flared even more brightly, and Kou felt his eyebrows begin to singe. He closed his eyes.

 _Sorry, Masuya. I guess I'm not as smart as I thought I was._

Then there was a rush of warm wind, carrying a smell of herbs and fresh-baked bread. Sol gave a yelp of surprise, and the heat beating against Kou's face suddenly abated. Kou opened his eyes... and blinked. He rubbed at them a few times and looked again. Where there had been nothing before but a few scraggly trees, there were now two ... well, call them men. They were both tall, both handsome in their own particular ways, both beautifully dressed in ornate robes, one in grass-green and gold, the other in silver-gray and olive green. They _glowed_.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Kou blurted.

The one in gray smiled pleasantly at him. "You're welcome."

Sol glared at the two of them. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"I'm Epinard," said the one wearing the glasses, "and I'd like it very much if you'd let my reporter go. I've been working with him for a while now, and I've gotten a little attached to him."

"I'm Argent," said the other. He was regarding Sol thoughtfully, as if he were a piece of writing he couldn't quite puzzle out. "You're Sol, aren't you? Where is your brother? I need to talk to the two of you very urgently."

"You don't need to talk to us about anything," Sol snapped. "You two just stay out of this. I've heard of you two - a couple of filthy _humans_ who dare to call yourself gods."

"Fate decided we should be," Epinard pointed out. "Do you want to take it up with him?"

Sol flared - _literally_ flared, with hot golden light flickering like flame all around him.

"Don't you _dare_ speak to me of him!" Sol snarled. "Don't you dare! You don't even deserve to use his name!"

 _Wow,_ Kou thought, as he carefully began inching into the trees. _I wonder what that's all about?_

Apparently, the two gods didn't know, either. They exchanged worried looks.

"I'm sorry," said Epinard carefully. "I think we've missed something here. Is there some history between you and him?"

"Yes!" said Sol. "You have no idea how important he is to us..."

"I do," said Argent softly. "You're completely devoted to him, aren't you?"

Something in his voice seemed to throw Sol off his stride. He faltered, and the lights around him went out.

"How would you know?" he muttered sullenly.

"Because I'm the god of devotion," said Arima. "That's one of the things I'm supposed to know. I can feel it on you like an aching wound. You've missed him very much all these years, haven't you?"

"I..." Sol began. Kou was amazed to realize that the god's voice sounded very close to tears. For a moment, it seemed like he was about to spill everything, and Kou's newsman's instincts went on high alert as he realized he might just get to hear the root of this story he'd been following.

Then stubborn red light flared around Sol again, and he backed away.

"No!" he said. "You're just trying to get past my defenses. You don't matter. None of you matter! All that matters to me is my brother and Fate. Just leave me alone!"

The fire was back now, burning in his hands in an immense flaming ball, but at least it wasn't aimed at Kou this time. It was being flung in the direction of Epinard and Argent. Argent dodged lightly out of the way, and Epinard slipped something that looked like a book out of his pocket and held it in one hand. With a flick of his wrist, it became a fan, a delicate-looking construction of paper and steel. He snapped it decisively at the fireball, and the flames dispersed. Argent slipped some sort of weapon from his belt, a length of fine chain with weights on either end in the shape of closed flower buds. The air whistled ominously as he whirled one end of the chain.

"We didn't come here to start a fight," said Argent reasonably, "but that doesn't mean we can't have one. On the whole, I really think it might be better if we talked this out in a calm and rational manner, don't you?"

"Don't take that patronizing tone of voice with me!" Sol snarled.

He flung another fireball at Argent's feet, forcing him back a few paces, and Epinard moved in closer to his companion, prepared to defend him if necessary. Sol glanced around uneasily, and Kou got the distinct impression that he was searching for his brother to back him up. Obviously, Sol wasn't used to fighting alone, and he didn't like it.

"Stop ganging up on me!" he shouted. He threw another fireball, and while his enemies were coping with that, he gestured and produced what looked like a giant pair of shears, their edges glinting in the moonlight, their tips as pointed as swords. They looked like a cumbersome weapon, but he handled them with ease.

"How dare you try to stand against me," he growled. "You're nothing but a pair of humans with over-inflated ideas of yourself. You're not _real_ gods!"

"We were chosen by Fate," said Epinard. "We're real enough for him."

"No!" Sol lunged at them, slashing with the sharp point of his shears. He was in a frenzy of anger now, and the other two gods had to scramble to keep themselves from being skewered. Sol slashed at them again and again, shouting, "No, no, no! You are _not_ good enough for him! No one is good enough for him!"

"I think," said Argent, as he fended off the frenzied attacks, "you may have touched him on the raw, there."

He flicked the end of his chain and managed to loop one end around the handle of Sol's shears. He gave a firm jerk, and the shears went flying out of Sol's hands and embedded themselves in the turf a few yards away. At the same moment, Epinard flared his fan again and summoned a gust of wind that pushed Sol several more yards in the opposite direction. Sol hit the ground hard and rolled, but sprang up to his feet again almost immediately.

"You won't beat me that easily!" he declared. He held up one hand and moved it in an arc, and a wall of flame burst forth to come roaring at his two opponents. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of smoke and burning leaves. Epinard and Argent were forced to back away to avoid being scorched. While Epinard used his fan to force the fire back, Sol darted forwards to retrieve his weapon.

"No more fooling around," he declared. "I'm sending you both to the darkness where you belong."

Flame began rippling out along the blades of his weapon, spiraling around it in a fiery tornado. The air became unbearably hot as the vortex swirled faster and faster, and then...

 _Twang!_

Sol stumbled, a glowing golden arrow protruding from his shoulder. The firestorm went out, and the shears slipped from his hands and fell to the ground, their light extinguished. The arrow faded into sparks, leaving a charred hole in the sleeve of Sol's robe.

"Well," said an authoritative voice, "it looks like I got here just in time."


	8. The Revenge

Atsushi stared up at the top of a nearby tree. Perched in one of its branches - a slender thing that shouldn't have been able to support a man's weight, but which somehow didn't even bend beneath its burden - was Kinshiro. The moon hung behind him, surrounding him with a golden glow, and his silver hair tossed in the wind. Standing there, straight and proud, his bow held easily in his hands, he had never looked more splendid.

Somehow, Atsushi wasn't altogether happy to see him.

"Aurite," Sol snarled. "I should have known you would turn up."

Kinshiro bounded down from his perch to land soundlessly on the leafy ground.

"This has been a long time coming," he said, drawing a fresh arrow, "but this time, there's no way out for you. You've committed too many crimes to be allowed any more leniency."

"Kinshiro..." said Atsushi softly.

"It has to be done," said Kinshiro firmly. He pulled his bowstring taut. "I'll take care of this now, and then we'll track down the other one."

"Now, wait just a minute..." Arima began plaintively.

"I told you two not to come here!" Kinshiro snapped. "Just stay out of it and leave it to me."

He loosed his arrow, and Sol gave a terrified little squeak.

A green blur shot out of the forest and flung itself at the arrow. Atsushi watched in amazement as a tiny flying squirrel latched onto the shaft of the arrow. The shot went wild, missing Sol by several inches and burying itself in the turf a few feet behind him.

"Dadacha!" Sol exclaimed.

The squirrel lost his grip on the arrow and went tumbling across the ground in a ball of green fur.

"I'm okay, dacha..." he said woozily.

Sol stooped to snatch up his pet and drop it in his pocket.

"It's okay, Dadacha," he said, shooting a venomous glare at Kinshiro. "I'm not letting him get away with this."

Kinshiro snorted. "Pathetic. What sort of god lets imps fight his battles?"

"Fight my battles?" Sol repeated slowly. A wicked grin crept across his face. "Yes, I suppose letting him fight my battles is a little inappropriate. He is a bit underpowered for this, isn't he?"

Kinshiro's eyes narrowed. "What sort of game are you trying to play?"

"What game should I be playing?" Sol retorted. "I'm just listening to your advice. You said I had the wrong person fighting my battles, and obviously three against one isn't a fair fight. You like being fair, don't you, Aurite?"

"You're trying to distract me," said Kinshiro.

"I'm being reasonable," said Sol. "Unlike some people I could mention. You really didn't want these two fighting your battles, did you?" His voice took on a lulling quality. He was almost singing the words as he continued, "You told them not to come here, and they disobeyed you. Doesn't that hurt, Aurite? These two, who should have been the people closest to you - your darling husband and your devoted servant. Neither of them listened to you. They _betrayed_ you. Maybe they just don't love you anymore. That's how humans are, you know. They're changeable as the winds - passionately devoted one day, cold the next."

Atsushi stared in dismay. A strange sullen light had come into Kinshiro's eyes, turning his normal green to a smouldering ember red.

 _This is what they did to poor Katari,_ Atsushi realized. _Making him angry, so angry he can't think straight..._

"Don't listen to him!" Atsushi blurted. "He's just messing with your head!"

Kinshiro wheeled on him. "Don't listen to him? You mean, the way you didn't listen to me?"

"No, wait..." Atsushi stammered.

Sol laughed wildly. "That's it, Aurite! Show them what you do to people who break your commandments!"

Kinshiro responded by loosing a volley of arrows. Atsushi batted them away with his fan, but the force of them was still enough to drive him a few steps backwards. Arima managed to deflect most of the shots, but one aimed lower than the rest got past his defenses to spear him in the calf. He gasped in pain and dropped to one knee, clutching at his wound.

"This is your fault," said Kinshiro, his voice oddly toneless. He didn't seem to be quite looking at either of them, but at something beyond them. "You should have listened to me..."

He began advancing on Arima, a fresh arrow ready in his hand. Atsushi watched in horror. Atsushi loved Kinshiro from the bottom of his heart, but Arima had been devoted to him for years before Atsushi had ever met him. He'd worshiped and adored him without ever asking anything in return but the chance to continue serving him, and now the object of that devotion was getting ready to destroy him, all because just this once, Arima hadn't done what Kinshiro had told him.

Sol was still giggling. "This is great! Wait until I tell my brother about this. He's going to love it."

"Stop it!" Atsushi shouted. He glared furiously at Sol. "Make him stop! This isn't right!"

"No," said Sol. "This is my revenge on Aruite for sealing my brother and me inside that stupid seal for who knows how many centuries. Do you have any idea what that was like? _We couldn't even talk to each other._ It was _torture_ , and now he's going to pay. He separated me from the people I love most, so now he's going to lose the people he loves most, and he's going to do it to himself."

"That's sick," said Atsushi.

Sol grinned. "That's justice."

"Yes," Kinshiro repeated dully. "Justice."

Atsushi watched as Kinshiro drew back the bow and took aim. Arima seemed to be trying to vanish to safety - his outlines blinked and wavered, but the pain of his injury was distracting him.

"Stop!" Atsushi shouted, but Kinshiro took no notice. Atsushi clenched his fists. There had to be some way of stopping him...

 _...from destroying what he loves,_ Atsushi thought. _What he loves..._

Atsushi took to his feet. In an emerald blur, he launched himself at Kinshiro and flung his arms around him. Kinshiro went rigid; Atsushi could feel the muscles in his back and shoulders trembling.

"What... what are you...?" he stammered.

"It's all right," said Atsushi. "It's just me. You know me. You're safe."

"You... you betrayed me," said Kinshiro.

"That isn't why you're angry," said Atsushi softly. "You were just worried about us, weren't you? You were afraid we would go into a dangerous situation and get ourselves hurt. That's what made you so angry, wasn't it? You didn't want us to get hurt."

"I... that's right. I was angry..."

"But you didn't want to hurt us because of it," said Arima. He managed to stagger to his feet so that he could stand before Kinshiro and embrace him, so that Kinshiro was now sandwiched between him and Atsushi. "You wanted us _not_ to get hurt. Isn't that right?"

"I... I'm not sure..."

"You're not really angry, are you?" asked Atsushi gently. "It isn't anger that has you so worked up, is it? It's love. You love us both too much to want us to be in danger, don't you?"

"Yes..." said Kinshiro softly, and then, more firmly, "Yes, that's right. I was so afraid you'd get hurt. I didn't want to lose you..."

Atsushi felt the tension go out of him. The golden bow slipped from his fingers and vanished.

Sol made a noise of frustration. "How did you do that? How did you break my hold on him?"

"Didn't," said Atsushi, with a trace of pardonable smugness. "I just realized - you aren't creating his emotions, just enhancing feelings that were already there. I just sort of reminded him of what he was really feeling."

"And what I'm feeling right now," said Kinshiro, extracting himself from the embrace, "is severely annoyed that you would play tricks with my emotions like that."

"Agreed," said Atsushi, holding his fan at the ready.

"I think," said Arima, "that it's time we stopped all this foolishness and talked this over reasonably, don't you? This isn't a fight you can win, so just calm down and talk to us."

Sol looked from one face to the other, eyes wide. He licked his lips nervously.

"You're not going to take me again," he said. "I won't let you. We're too close to our goal!"

"What is your goal?" Atsushi asked.

Sol shook his head. "You wouldn't understand. It doesn't matter to you. Once we're through, you'll never have to worry about my brother or me again."

"Tell us," Arima implored. "If we knew..."

"You'd try to stop us," Sol finished.

Arima shook his head. "Epinard and I didn't come here to harm you. We're just trying to understand. I think we could find a way to make peace if we could just..."

"No, you can't fool me," said Sol. "We've already made up our minds, and you can't stop us."

He vanished in a flash of red fire.

"Wait!" Argent exclaimed. "Come back! I want to help you..." Then he slumped, defeated.

"Let him go," said Kinshiro. "He isn't listening to reason right now, and you're injured."

"But..." Arima began.

"He's right," said Atsushi. "We tried and it didn't work this time. You need to rest and recover a little before we try again."

"I'm fine," said Arima. "Really. I'm practically healed already."

Kinshiro raised an eyebrow. "And that's why you aren't putting any weight on your leg. I see." Then he lowered his eyes. "I'm sorry, Arima. I let him get to me. That never happened before, the last time I tried to fight them."

"You didn't love anyone before," said Atsushi quietly.

"That's probably it," Kinshiro agreed with a sigh. "You both mean so much to me... I never would have tried to hurt you if I had been in full possession of my senses. Forgive me."

"Nothing to forgive," Arima assured him. "You were worried about us. It wasn't your fault someone used that against you."

"And we probably shouldn't have gone behind your back like this," said Atsushi. "Even if we knew you didn't want us to go, we could have at least let you know we were going."

"There is that," Kinshiro agreed with a small smile. Begging forgiveness was not a thing he was good at keeping up for very long.

"At least now I understand why Ryuu and I reacted the way we did," said Arima. "It has something to do with Fate. Every time we so much as mentioned his name, you could see him flinch."

Kinshiro looked at him quizzically. "Are you certain?"

"Absolutely," said Arima. "It's a form of devotion and love, but it's been thwarted. I think their feelings have been pent up for so long that they're frantic for any outlet, even if it's a destructive one."

"You mean they're doing all this out of devotion to Gora?" Atsushi asked. "Why? What do they think they've got to gain from all this?"

"I don't know," Arima admitted. "They want it badly, whatever it is, and I can't help but feel that they've gotten the wrong end of the stick somehow."

"You don't say," said Kinshiro dryly.

"I'm serious," said Arima. "Whatever's going on here, we're all looking at it the wrong way round. If I can just catch up to them, I can figure out where they've gone wrong. This can be fixed, I'm sure of it." He met Kinshiro's eyes with a level gaze. "Please trust me. I'm so close to figuring it out. I just need a little more time."

Kinshiro hesitated for a moment. Then, very reluctantly, he nodded.

"All right," he said. "Clearly my old way of fighting them isn't going to be effective this time. I'll let you have your chance."

Arima heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank you. I won't let you down."

Atsushi smiled. "We know you won't. You never have before."

The three of them stood for a moment, gazing at each other in mutual appreciation. The moment was broken by an awed voice just at the edge of the clearing.

"Wow," said Kou. "What a story this is going to make!"

* * *

Ouso and Katari were huddled together in the temple's pantry. Katari wasn't sure why Ouso had chosen that particular hiding place. Ouso had run, and Katari had run after him, and here they were. Perhaps it was because this was one of the few rooms in the temple that had no windows, and was blocked by two doors - one at the top of a flight of stairs and another at the bottom. It was a few feet underground, where the food would stay cooler. It was also very dark, since neither of them had bothered to light any lamps. Perhaps Ouso thought they would be safe there. Katari could have told him better. Gods could walk through walls, and they could see in the dark, and Katari suspected that a god who called himself the god of night would be particularly effective in such a dark place. He didn't say any of that, though. He just sat there, huddled among the scents of dusty potatoes and dried herbs and apples and rice, and listened for any sound that danger was coming. He knew he wouldn't hear it, but he listened just the same.

What he heard was Ouso's voice, quiet in the dark.

"Is it true, what they said?" he asked. "Are you really a god?"

"I was," said Katari miserably. "I used to be the god of poetry, but I committed a crime against Fate and had my divinity taken away. Now I'm only human, just like you."

"But you _used_ to be a god," Ouso persisted. "And you probably will be again, someday. I mean, that's how the stories usually go. Like the story about Aurite. He got punished by turning into a human and he... he fell in love with a human. And he learned his lesson and got turned back into a god and got married and lived happily ever after."

"I think that was a one-time thing," said Katari.

Ouso sighed gustily. "Yeah. I thought it probably was."

"I'm sorry," said Katari.

"For what?"

"For everything," said Katari. "So much of this is my fault. I stole Fate's axe and gave it to them, for starters. If they ruin everything, it will be because of me. And I'm sorry I couldn't be a better god. I'm not Aurite. Even if I had my full powers, I wouldn't be a match for these two. I write _poetry_."

"I'm not useful either."

"Don't say that!" Katari protested. "You are useful."

"I'm not," said Ouso. "I mean... I'm not what I told you I am. All those stories I told you... I wanted them to be true, but they're not. My real life is boring. I'm just the son of a couple of turnip farmers."

"I know," said Katari.

He felt Ouso twitch. "You do?"

"I knew all along," said Katari. "It doesn't bother me. I'm a poet, remember? We're used to finding the truth in words that aren't strictly true. When a poet writes that his beloved is the ocean, he doesn't mean that his sweetheart is actually a body of water, but that doesn't mean he's lying, either. You were telling me a truth about yourself. It helped me to learn about you - what you believe in, what's important to you, what you would like to become. Those are more important truths than where you were born or what jobs your parents had."

"You make it sound like I was doing something noble," said Ouso. "I wasn't, though. I only said all that other stuff because... well, I wanted you to think I was interesting."

"But I do think you're interesting," said Katari.

"I'm not," Ouso insisted. "I've never been good at anything in my life. I've never succeeded at anything. I'm not talented or good-looking or anything, so I just... I made up stories where I was."

"You didn't need to," said Katari. "I think you're fine the way you are."

Ouso sniffled a little. "Now you're the one telling stories."

"I'm not," said Katari. "You _are_ talented. _And_ good-looking. I'm happy I got this chance to meet you. If we get out of this..."

"Yes?" asked Ouso hopefully.

Blue light flared.

"Yes," said a cool voice. "Tell me what you'll do when you get out of this. I imagine it will be amusing."

Katari felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Luna was standing in the doorway, watching both of them with an unpleasant smile. Only now did it occur to Katari that there was another reason why taking shelter here had been a bad idea: there were no windows and no other way out besides the one where Luna was standing. They were trapped.

"Go away!" said Ouso. His voice was quavering, and in the stark blue light of Luna's glow, Katari could see that the young man's cheeks were streaked with tears, and that his nose was starting to run. Nevertheless, he was scrambling to his feet, fists clenched as if ready to take a swing at his persecutor. He didn't cut a very fine figure, stumbling over spilled potatoes with his robes askew, and yet Katari found himself thinking, _I could never write a poem good enough to capture this._ Then he thought, _I wish I could live long enough to try._

"Why should I?" Luna asked, almost pleasantly. "This is my temple, in case you've forgotten - mine and my brother's, I should say. _You_ are just a useless human who lives here on our sufferance."

"I... I'm not useless!" Ouso said. "Tagaru - Katari doesn't think I'm useless, and I believe him more than I believe you."

Luna gave a snort of contempt. "You'd take the word of a disgraced god, cast down and rejected by the rest of his kind, over mine?"

"Why shouldn't he?" Katari replied. " _You_ were cast down and rejected too."

Luna reacted as if Katari had stuck a knife into him.

"How dare you!" he snapped.

"It's the truth," said Katari. "You were supposed to be sealed away forever. No matter what you do to me, you can't change the fact that no one ever wanted you to get free of that seal."

"That's not true! That's not true!" Luna shouted. "The other gods resented us, but Fate... Fate loves us, I know he does! He'd want us to come back! We just have to prove we're good enough!"

 _What do you know?_ Katari thought irreverently. _It seems Ouso isn't the only one who tells himself stories._

"Are you sure he'd approve of this?" Katari asked. "I don't think he likes people destroying his creations."

"We don't have to destroy you," said Luna. "All we have to do is prove that we're better than you. We're not minor gods like you, confined to only one thing. We're masters of everything around us, just like him. All we have to do is make him realize that he doesn't need you anymore. All he needs is us."

"You're out of your mind," said Katari flatly.

"We'll just see about that," said Luna.

He began stalking closer. The temperature in the room dropped, so that Katari couldn't tell whether he was shivering from nerves or cold. Then something warm touched him - Ouso's hand, closing around his own. Katari gave it a squeeze.

"It's all right," he said. "I won't let him hurt you."

"I know," said Ouso.

 _I guess I tell stories, too._

He closed his eyes and resigned himself to whatever came next. He found he was actually sorry to have spent so little time as a human. Brief as his time had been, it had all been so much more intense than life as a god. Somehow these short hours had been more meaningful than centuries of his old life. He wondered what was going to happen when he died. No god he knew of had ever been in quite this situation before...

Then there came a flash and a rush of heat that rolled through the cellar as Sol appeared. His hair was ruffled, and the sleeve of his robes had a charred hole around it, showing a nasty burn on his shoulder.

"We've got company," he snapped.

Luna glared at him. "What now?"

"Aurite is here, and he's got his friends with him, and they're not happy," said Sol. "We need to get out of here, fast."

"And just give up?" Luna retorted.

"We don't need to be here," said Sol. "There's nothing more we can do now that Aurite knows we're here. We have to move on."

Luna gritted his teeth. "I hate losing to that pompous, self-righteous prig."

"I do too, but this was never our highest priority," said Sol. "Let's just get out of here. We're so close to being finished - we can't let them stop us now!" He shot a glare at Ouso. "Besides, he's worthless anyway. We might as well wash our hands of him."

"There is that," said Luna, passing his gaze critically over his former priest. "Well, perhaps you're right. We have enough power stored up already, I think. There's no reason to stick around."

Sol shifted nervously. "Fine, then let's get out of here before Aurite tracks us down. I don't feel like getting shot again." He fingered the scorched hole in his sleeve.

"All right, all right," said Luna. He looked back at his two captives. "You're off the hook this time. Don't let us catch you again."

The two gods vanished, taking their light with them. The cellar became pitch-black once more. Katari let out his breath in a long rush.

"Are we safe?" asked Ouso tremulously.

"I think we are," Katari replied.

"Oh." Ouso turned so that he could press himself against Katari, and Katari willingly put his arms around him and held him close. God or not, after an experience like this, anyone would want a hug.

 _I don't think I've ever hugged anybody before._ Katari realized. How strange. He had inspired innumerable love poems in his time, but he'd never experienced any of the delights people wrote about for himself. Experimentally, he raised a hand and twined his fingers though Ouso's hair, and felt his companion sigh and relax in response. A smile crept over Katari's face.

"It's all right," he said. "We're together, and we're safe. I'm not going to leave you."

"But you're a god," Ouso objected.

"Not anymore," said Katari. "I might never be again. And anyway, I don't care. I want to stay with you."

"Really?" Ouso asked.

"Really," said Katari. "I mean... if you want me to stay with you. Now that you know the truth. I really did botch things pretty badly."

"I do want you to stay!" said Ouso quickly. "I want it more than anything. I don't care that you messed up. I mess up all the time. It doesn't matter to me that you made one mistake." He laughed, a bit shakily. "Anyway... it will make a good story."

Katari laughed too. "You're right - that's very important. We'll make this the best story ever."

In retrospect, they might have agreed that the best story ever would not have involved the happy couple sharing their first kiss in a dark cellar, surrounded by cobwebs and jars of pickles, but at the time it seemed the only possible happy ending.

* * *

Kou was in a hurry. He darted through the streets as fast as his feet could carry him - which was surprisingly fast, considering his size and the crowded nature of Lightflower. The markets may be closing down for the evening, but the restaurants, theaters, and various parties were just starting to warm up, and the citizenry was out in full force to enjoy them. Kou darted through and around clumps of people, dodged oncoming carriages, narrowly avoided crashing into oncoming food carts. He was a very good runner, having had plenty of opportunities to practice getting away from annoyed people who didn't like being asked questions and who were bigger and stronger than he was. He always made his best time when he was under pressure, and right now, he was both stressed and extremely annoyed.

The annoyance was easily enough explained. He had been excited to see something as epic as a battle among gods playing out before his very eyes. He had been eager to go home and start writing it all up for a special edition of the paper, but Aurite had put his foot down, and you had to listen when Aurite told you to your face that you must absolutely under no circumstances do a thing. Epinard had been kinder. He'd explained that the more people who had heard of Luna and Sol and recognized their divinity, the more powerful the twin gods would be, and the more difficult it would be for the rest of the gods to stop them. For the good of the world, Kou had to keep his mouth shut and his pen still. Kou understood this. It still rankled. When it came to things Kou was good at, keeping his mouth shut was near the bottom of the list.

"You'll at least pay me for this, right?" he'd asked Epinard. "You promised me payment and a bonus if I was the first to find what you were looking for."

"I'll take care of it," Epinard promised. "You don't have to worry about that. I keep my promises."

And so Kou had been forced to content himself with that. He did not feel altogether content. Cash in hand would have made him feel better than a few promises.

That was why he was annoyed. The reason why he was stressed was a lot more important: the sun had already gone down, and Masuya was waiting for him with no idea where he'd gone or why he hadn't come back. He'd be getting frantic. Kou needed to get back to him before he panicked completely. Gritting his teeth, Kou mustered up an extra burst of speed and tore down the street in a blur.

He skidded around a corner and finally came within sight of the hotel he'd been staying in. At first, the crowds around him were too thick for him to make out much more than the roof and two upper floors. Then, as he drew nearer, the crowds thinned enough that he could see Masuya standing on the walkway outside the hotel, looking anxiously up and down the street. Kou let out as much of a sigh as he could, given how winded he was from his run.

"Masuya! Hey, Masuya, over here!" he shouted.

Masuya's face lit up. "Kou!"

He broke into his long-legged lope and barged up the sidewalk, scattering the crowd, until he reached Kou and swept him up into a hug. Kou smiled and leaned contentedly against his husband's chest. It really _was_ nice to come home and find someone waiting for him.

"Where have you been?" Masuya asked. "I was _worried_."

"Oh, you know, just following up on a story," said Kou. "Things got a little more exciting than I expected, and time got away from me. I'll tell you all about it later."

"Okay," said Masuya, now perfectly happy again. Whatever had gone wrong, it was not his problem, and Kou had come home safely, so as far as he was concerned, all was once again right with the world. After the night he'd had, Kou found himself appreciating this simple outlook on life.

"Tell you what," he said. "Let me go up to our room and change clothes real quick, and then we'll grab something to eat. I don't know about you, but all this running around has made me hungry."

Masuya agreed that this was a good idea. However, they barely made it through the front door before they encountered a hitch in their plans.

"Excuse me," said one of the inn's staff, hurrying towards them. "Are you Masuya and Kou Kinosaki?"

"That's us," Kou agreed.

"I'm afraid there's been a problem with your room," said the man shamefacedly. "Something happened to the fireplace - I'm sure I have no idea how - but the room isn't fit to live in right now and the cleaning will take some time." Lowering his voice, he said, "Don't worry - your belongings are still clean, but the rest of the room looks as though a whirlwind came down the chimney. It's a miracle your clothes came through untouched."

Kou's eyebrows rose slightly. "A miracle, you say?"

The man must have misinterpreted his look, because he said quickly, "It isn't as bad as it seems, sir. In fact, it's something of a windfall, if you'll excuse the phrase. It seems a friend of yours was having a drink in the public room and overheard the commotion. When he realized you were friends of his, he offered to have you both put up in the Vine and Blossom."

"And that's another hotel?" Kou ventured.

"Indeed, sir. The finest in the city, as a matter of fact. I'm surprised you don't know of it. Your luggage has already been shipped there, and your friend said to tell you that he's arranged to have your meals there billed to him."

"Uh-huh," said Kou. "This friend... would he be about so tall, dark hair, a little gray at the temples, brown eyes, wears glasses, usually dresses in green?"

"That's the one, sir."

"Looks like he kept his promise, then," said Kou. "I never should have doubted him."

"What was that, sir?"

"Nothing," said Kou. "So you say we've got a room at this Vine and Blossom place?"

"Yes, sir. Apparently the imperial suite was available." He gave Kou the look of respect that hotel employees had for people with wealthy connections. "Your friend must hold you in very high regard."

Kou shrugged. "Like I said, he owed me a favor."

The hotel employee gave him a look that said he was dying to ask what Kou had done for anyone that could earn him a favor that big, and that he was too well-trained to actually ask. Kou decided he would just as soon keep up an air of mystery. He thanked the man, gave him a reasonable tip, and began leading Masuya back outside.

"Come on," he said. "Looks like our luck is in tonight. Let's go paint the town red."

Masuya looked dubious. "I don't think I have that much paint."

Kou smiled and patted him reassuringly. "I meant, let's go have some fun."

"Ah!" said Masuya, brightening. "Okay! Let's go do that!"

He beamed, and Kou grinned back, thinking that perhaps all the trouble he'd been through tonight had been worth it after all.

* * *

"Ow! Be careful! That hurts!" Haru complained.

He was back in their hideaway, sitting on what passed for their bed, although they hadn't bothered to try sleeping in it yet. He had removed his outer robe and shirt, and was now letting Dadacha attend to his injury. As a rule, gods tended not to injure easily and healed quickly on the occasions when it happened, but Aurite's arrows were meant to punish evildoers and they were meant to hurt. The puncture was an ugly one. Dadacha had studied it closely, sniffed it, touched it gently with a paw, and finally licked it. Then he'd scuttled off down a corridor, returning a few minutes later dragging a bottle bigger than he was. The stuff inside looked like a pureed peach and smelled like something dredged from the bottom of a swamp, but it did feel soothing on his burned skin.

"Well, of course," said Dadacha, when Haru had commented on it. "We're always getting into fights with gods, and we usually don't come out as winners, so we've learned to keep a few first aid supplies on hand."

Just now, he was in the process of fastening on a bandage. It wasn't the most comfortable thing Haru had ever experienced. He was feeling less than settled in his mind, as well, and it was making him crankier than usual.

"I sort of wish I hadn't run away," he said.

"You had to," said Aki. He was toying with the golden axe again, admiring the way the light reflected off its gleaming surface."Aurite wouldn't have forgiven you after what you did to him. You had no other choice."

"True, but still." He hated running away. It galled him that when it came down to a fight, Aurite could still push him around. Even that mild-looking man with the fan had done a good job, both at out-fighting him and outwitting him. It made him wonder if he and his brother were really as up to this task they'd set themselves as they'd first thought.

And then there was the other one - what did they call him? Argent? Haru felt just the tiniest bit bad about what he'd done to Argent. After all, he had never done Haru or Aki any harm. He hadn't even _existed_ when the two of them had been sealed. Yes, Aurite deserved to be punished, but did that mean they had to take it out on random strangers too? Argent had said he wanted to help them, and he'd sounded sincere. He'd seemed so sure that he could find a purpose for them, if they'd just given him the chance...

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" Haru asked aloud.

"Who?" asked Aki.

"Argent, or whatever his name is," said Haru, "and put that thing down before you cut a hole in something. You're making me nervous."

"I'm not going to cut a hole in anything," said Aki. "And no, I don't think he was telling the truth - not about knowing our purpose. He only said that because he thought it was something we'd want to hear. But it doesn't matter - we don't need to know anymore. Nothing can stop our plan now." He raised the golden axe to eye level and contemplated it rapturously. "All we need now is to put this beauty to good use, and then..."

"This plan of yours," Dadacha put in, "it isn't going to cause any, you know, _widespread_ trouble, will it? Only I've got a brother out there, and I don't want anything to happen to him."

Aki turned to him with interest, momentarily distracted. "You have a brother? Really? I didn't know demons had brothers. I thought they didn't go in much for emotional attachments."

Dadacha flattened his ears and fluffed his neck fur in the squirrel approximation of a blush. "Well, not all demons started out as demons, you know..."

Yes, Haru and Aki knew. While humans becoming gods was a relatively new development, humans becoming demons had been part of the universe's structure practically from the beginning. When a wicked soul was judged guilty and packed off to the Land of the Accursed Dead, they were offered two options: to give up their wicked ways and agree to live a life of virtue, or to suffer an eternity of torment. Most people, however, quickly learned that there was a third option. The paths that led back to the mortal world and to the brighter parts of the underworld were heavily guarded, but no one guarded the path to the Abyss. They didn't really need to. Most people who went that way were gobbled up by demons and never seen again.

At least not in any recognizable form. The gods and theologians had a vague concept of something they called "the darkness", from which they believed they had emerged, and to which they believed all souls - mortal, divine, and demonic - would return if they were destroyed. Haru had asked Gora about it once, and Gora had scratched his head and said at last that while it was possible such a thing might have created him, he surely hadn't created it, and that was all that Haru had ever learned on the subject. Presumably, however, it was the final resting place of those souls too troublesome for even demons to want to put up with.

But Dadacha and his brother had apparently avoided finding out about the darkness for themselves. They had, Dadacha explained, been criminals in their mortal lives, making their living by confidence tricks when they could and by pickpocketing and burgling when they couldn't. They had duly been sent to the Land of the Accursed Dead, and had planned their escape together. They had been lucky, they had been quick and clever, they had learned fast and flattered the right people, and they had gotten their reward. They had become demons in their own right, if only small ones. Haru gathered that Dadacha's brother Zundar dreamed of someday rising high enough in the ranks of demons to become a demon lord himself someday - which was practically as good as being a god, at least up until the point when one of the divinities got tired of your behavior and decided to smite you. Haru didn't blame his little squirrel friend for looking for a safer option.

"It will be fine," Aki assured him. "We aren't really out to hurt anyone, unless they come after us first. Nothing will happen to your brother."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Dadacha. He knotted off the bandage. "How does that feel? Better?"

"Much," Haru replied. He flexed his arm a few times and was pleased to see that there was no longer any pain. "Good job, Dadacha."

Dadacha fluffed his fur, clearly enjoying the praise. "Always glad to help."

"You've been invaluable to us," said Aki. "We'll remember that when all this is over."

"It will be over soon, won't it?" said Haru softly. "And then we'll have what we want..."

"That's right," said Aki. "Don't worry about anything else. We'll be together with Gora soon, and that's all that matters."

Haru nodded slowly. Of course that was what he wanted. He'd been dreaming of it for eons. Sometimes that had been all that had kept him going, through those long years of being sealed away: imagining what it would be like when they were finally reunited. And yet...

 _Curse that Argent!_

And yet he now had the nagging feeling that it wasn't going to be enough. A god wanted to do his work the way a mortal wanted to breathe, and he and Aki had never had a purpose to fulfill. Even if their plan worked, they still wouldn't have any idea what they were for. Yesterday, Haru had been looking forward to the end of it all, but now he couldn't fight a creeping sensation that even if things turned out the way they had planned, it would just be a way of avoiding their problem instead of solving it. In the end, perhaps it still wouldn't be enough to satisfy him...

"Are you sure there's no other way?" he asked quietly.

"There is no other way," said Aki sternly. He set aside the axe to go to stand before Haru and grip his hands. "Don't give up on me now, Haru. We're so close. If there had been another way, someone would have found it by now. This is our one shot at happiness. We can't let it slip away."

Haru nodded. "You're right, of course."

And he agreed. Anything was better than nothing. Only...

 _I still wish there was a better way._


	9. The Underworld Stone

Shin sat at his desk and stared down at his journal.

 _Today,_ he wrote, _I got another rejection letter..._

He let the line trail off. He had written those words so many times. So many times, he had carefully put together portfolios of his work, bundled them up with letters pleading, blustering, and begging by turns, all of them asking that someone, somewhere, be willing to become his patron. He had applied to schools of art in every large city he knew of. He had approached wealthy men and women who were known for keeping tame artists. He had even tried more unconventional routes - asking theaters to let him paint scenery, asking temples to let him apply murals to their walls. Always, it was the same answer: they were very sorry, but they didn't need anyone with his talents at this time. He could read between the lines well enough. Now he printed them, firmly, in his journal.

 _I am not good enough._

Then he threw his pen at the wall and flung himself back in his chair. It was not his fault! It wasn't his fault he had been born out here on the frontier, where there was absolutely nothing beyond the edges of what passed for a village but rocks, scrub, and unmelted snow. It wasn't his fault that traders might come through here selling paint once a year if he was lucky. It wasn't his fault he had to make his own ink and pens out of whatever he could find lying around that no one else was using. It wasn't his fault that there was no one here to teach him. There was just him, Shin Nito, trying and failing to become an artist.

"You need to give up this nonsense," his father had told him, more than once. "Being able to draw is a nice talent but it isn't what anyone would call useful. Get your head out of the clouds and find something practical to focus on."

"You're a grown man now," his mother kept telling him. "This was all very well when you were a child, but you're ready to move on now. Get a real job, find some nice girl or boy to marry and settle down."

Well, he didn't want to marry and settle down, and he didn't particularly want a real job, either. He certainly didn't want to spend the rest of his life in this dreary little gray down. You'd think a place with a name like Crystal Pass would be more, well... romantic. The name probably conjured up images of caverns studded with glittering gems, in the minds of people who had never been there. In reality, the only crystals in Crystal Pass were ice crystals, and the pass referred only to a gap between two mountains that had once been a major trade avenue, before a bridge had been built further to the south that crossed an otherwise uncrossable ravine. Shin wished he had lived here in the old days, when this was the only way that traders between this kingdom and the next one over could get through. The town had been a city, then. Sometimes, on his rambles around the perimeter of the village, he came across the crumbling walls of buildings that had once been there, perhaps centuries ago. Sometimes he even drew them, just because they were the only things anywhere nearby that were remotely interesting. Most of the time, he just sat and tried to imagine what they must have been like in their glory days.

 _If everything around here weren't so boring, maybe I could paint something interesting enough that someone would notice me._

He sighed, suddenly sick of the whole train of thought. He needed a change of air. Pity there was nowhere to get one around here.

"I'm going outside!" he called to his mother in the next room.

"That's nice, dear," she said. "Stop at the butcher's on the way home, would you, and pick up some more sausages, please? Tell him to put it on our tab and I'll settle up when I go next week."

And that, Shin thought, summed up his life rather nicely. As an artist, all he was really good for was picking up groceries.

 _Someday it will be different,_ he thought, more out of habit than conviction.

He left the house and stepped out into the bitter air. It was nearly always cold, in Crystal Pass. Only at the very height of summer did it ever get anything like really warm. That was Shin's favorite time of year. At least then, there were flowers and a few migratory birds, and for a few days, the town was almost beautiful. That was the time of year when he opened up some of his precious jars of colored ink. There was a single framed drawing on his wall that he'd never been able to convince himself to part with, showing the sun setting over the slope of a mountain where tiny yellow and blue and purple flowers peeked out among the grass. It was the best thing he'd ever done, and he sometimes wondered if perhaps he might get his longed-for position if he was willing to let it go. But what if he got rejected again? Potential patrons were not always generous about returning packets of rejected artwork. He couldn't bear to give it up and let someone else keep it, or worse, throw it away.

This time of year, though, there was nothing much to see but yellow grass and gray rocks. Today, there was the additional bonus of a lot of heavy gray clouds and a sporadic wind. Shin pulled a hat down lower over his ears, shoved his hands deeply into his pockets, and walked.

Now, which way should he go? His usual walk took him up to the northeastern end of town, the part nearest the pass. He would wander through the entrance to the gap and pretend that he was crossing over into the next kingdom, that he was about to start a new life somewhere bright and exotic where he would be appreciated. Today, though, the idea didn't appeal to him. He felt tired of kidding himself. Anyway, it was hard to make himself believe he was leaving town on a day like today, when the wind was whining all around him and the clouds were threatening to dump snow at any moment. If he were really leaving town for a new life, he'd go with at least a backpack, or better yet, a cart and a reindeer to pull it. No, going to the pass today would just make him feel lost and pathetic.

So which way was there to go? He could go down to the more southerly end of town and walk towards the valley, but that was hardly satisfactory either. There wasn't much to see down there but a few small farms and the fields where people grazed reindeer and curly-horned sheep. Neither one of those held much interest for him. So what did that leave? West and east. He had not gone down those directions very much, mostly because there was no road leading in either direction that way. If he went that way, he would have to clamber over rough ground and rock - and with his luck, he'd probably find a patch of ice with his foot, slip, and crack his head on a stone.

All the same, the idea of novelty - _any_ novelty, even the drama of falling and breaking a leg - held appeal.

 _All right, east or west?_ He closed his eyes and spun himself in a circle until he was no longer sure which direction he was facing, then raised an arm and pointed. Then he opened his eyes again. The world swum dizzily for a moment around him before gradually settling into something steady. He found himself facing a ridge of stone that blocked his view of anything more distant than a few dozen yards away. He had looked at that ridge of stone a thousand times, maybe ten thousand, and had never wondered what lay beyond it. Presumably, all that lay beyond it were more ridges of stone, but at least they would be _new_ ridges of stone. Maybe he could find a spring or a cave or even a tree he hadn't seen before. That was good enough for him. Tugging his gloves on a little more firmly, he set out with a resolute step.

The rock had looked steep from a distance, but it was less imposing close up, where he could see where all the potential hand- and foot-holds were. He was no sort of athlete, but you couldn't live in a place like Crystal Pass without being at least a little good at climbing. Shin scrambled over the ridge, thankful for his thick leather gloves and boots, then slid down the other side. _That_ side was steep, and went a lot further down than he had realized it would. He staggered a little as he landed, then looked doubtfully back up the way he had come.

 _I hope I'll be able to get back up again,_ he thought. Well, what difference did it make, really? If he couldn't climb up here, he would go further down the slope until he found a place he _could_ climb. That thought gave him a direction, and he began ambling slowly and carefully down the slope.

While he walked, he surveyed the terrain. He was a little surprised to find traces that other people had been here before him. But why not? He knew that Crystal Pass had once been a large city, and had extended far beyond the confines of what he now thought of as the town. He shouldn't have been surprised to know people had once lived in this part of the mountain as well. Here he saw the remains of a sign carved into the side of the mountain, the stone now too weathered to be read clearly. There were the foundations of an old stone building. Here... here was a scrap of road. That was interesting. Shin had never found old roads before. He had always thought that there was only one road left: the one that cut straight through the town and into the mountains, and even that one was starting to disappear due to disuse. In another couple of generations, all the ambitious young people in town would have moved on to better prospects, and there would be no need for a road left at all.

But this road still existed. It showed signs of having been beautiful once. It had been paved, and some of the paving stones still remained, not yet eaten away by the erosion of the mountains and the encroachments of plants and earth. He couldn't make out a clear pattern anymore, but Shin could see that it had once been covered in alternating dark and light stones, and it led off to... where?

Intrigued now, Shin forgot to worry about the cold, about potential snow, about how he was going to find his way home. He struck out down the path, following it as it wove in and out of rock outcroppings. At one point, he even passed a carving in a rock wall that seemed to say, "This way to the temple of..." but the markings were so old that they were hard to make out for sure, and the last line had been worn away entirely. Shin paused to stare at it for a long time, wondering at this. The most reasonable conclusion was that it was simply been rubbed out by shifting stone and scouring wind, but it was strange that only the name of the god itself had been wiped out. It was almost, he thought, as though someone had done that on purpose.

He kept going. It might have been his imagination, but the further along the path he traveled, the warmer the air seemed to get. It was always warmer in the valley than up on the peaks, but this was still spring. Even the valley should have been a bit nippy. This felt more like early summer. Perhaps this part of the mountain was more sheltered than the rest? He could still feel the wind playing around him, but it was no longer as harsh as it had been before.

 _Maybe that's a good omen,_ he thought. He began walking a little more briskly. Now that he was in motion, his spirits were beginning to rise again. He was going to find something good, he was sure of it, something that would make his career...

Then he rounded a corner and found the temple. It used to be a temple, anyway. It looked like it had been attacked with sledgehammers, so that there was nothing left of it now but a lot of broken stone. Even the floor had been smashed. It looked like it had once been black and white stone, like the road, polished to a smooth sheen, but now it was full of deep dents and radiating cracks. Shin wandered tentatively closer, hardly able to comprehend the scale of the damage. Who would do something like this to a temple of the gods?

"What happened here?" he asked aloud.

"Well, now, that's a very interesting question," said a dry little voice.

Shin jumped a foot. He whirled around, searching frantically for the source of the voice. There wasn't a human soul in sight.

"Up here," the voice offered.

Shin looked up. Perched at the top of a scraggly pine tree was a little green squirrel. It peered curiously down at him with enormous shining black eyes.

"You're a demon," Shin breathed. Then, after a beat, he added, "Can I draw you?"

The little imp fluffed his tail, looking rather flattered. It should have been impossible to tell beneath all that fur, but Shin almost got the impression the creature was blushing.

"Ah, well, you know," said the squirrel, industriously grooming his ears, "that really isn't in the agenda today. Maybe later. You'll be around, won't you?"

"Where am I going to go?" asked Shin, frustrated. Even the demons, it seemed, were here to give him a hard time. "I've got no money to speak of, I'm not good at anything but drawing, and I'm not even very good at that."

"Is that a fact?" asked the demon, and now there was a curiously leading quality in its voice. It wasn't the sort of tone that meant "I'm just making noises to be polite." It was the sort of tone that meant, "Are you really sure? Because I think you might be wrong." Shin was immediately on guard. When a demon started contradicting you like that, it was time to be wary. It was time to be wary _any_ time a demon talked to you, even one that was as little and cute as this one.

"That's what everyone tells me," said Shin. "I mean, I know I could be good if I had the right training, but no one else seems to think so."

The imp scurried down the tree and vaulted onto a nearby rock, which put him eye to eye with Shin.

"Tell me about it," he suggested.

Shin hesitated only a moment. Well, why not? Why shouldn't he tell his troubles to a listening ear, even one belonging to a demon squirrel? It wasn't like just telling someone something would bind him into a contract. It would feel good to tell his problems to someone. He just had to remember not to make any sort of bargains with the creature.

"It's just that I've _always_ wanted to be an artist," he said. "I've never wanted anything else. But this town barely has enough business in it to support even someone who does something practical like the butcher or the carpenter. There's no work for an artist around here. The only way I could get work is if I got enough money together to support myself in the city for a while so I could establish myself, or if I could get a wealthy patron to take an interest in me. And I've _tried_. I've sent all sorts of work to all sorts of people, and all of them say I'm no good. They say my work is flat and uninspired. The fashion these days is for art that's, you know, symbolic. They say I'm too representational, whatever that means. And I know I could do better, but there's nothing around here that could inspire an artist. If I just had something interesting to work with..."

The imp looked intrigued. Its whiskers pricked forwards.

"If that's how you feel..." it began.

"No," said Shin sharply. "I know what you are, and I'm not making any sort of deals with any sort of demons. You'll catch me in some sort of trap and I'll be worse off than when I started."

"Now, don't be too hasty," the little imp said. "Don't judge a book by its cover. I know I look like a demon - well, technically I _am_ a demon - but I'm not the sort of demon you're thinking of. I'm a servant of the gods."

Shin stared, genuinely impressed.

"That's the most bald-faced lie I've ever heard," he said. "The gods are going to have your fur to line Cerulean's bedroom slippers, saying something like that."

"It's true!" said Dadacha, fur fluffing slightly in agitation. "I know it may be hard to credit, but the fact is, I've sworn myself in service to the gods Luna and Sol. They're gods of the sun and moon," he added helpfully.

"Can a demon even do that?" Shin asked skeptically.

"I don't see why not," said Dadacha. "Everything in the universe is constantly in motion. Sometimes humans become gods. Sometimes gods become humans. Sometimes humans become demons. Why shouldn't a demon want to move up in the world?"

Shin couldn't think of a logical answer to that.

"So what does this have to do with me?" he asked instead.

"Because my lords are looking for servants," Dadacha answered. "They've been out of context for a while, and they're trying to get back into the swing of things. They need a few willing humans to carry out tasks for them, so they can start building up their temples again." He gestured with a forepaw at what was left of the old temple. "They've all gotten rather run down, as you can see."

"Huh," said Shin, still dubious. "It looks to me like someone knocked it down on purpose."

"I know," said Dadacha sadly. "Some people are really and truly nasty when they think they've won. It's sad, really, how arrogant winning can make some people."

Shin didn't think that really explained anything, but he decided that he probably wasn't going to get a straight answer even if he kept asking.

"So what do you expect me to do?" he asked. "I mean, I'd be happy to brighten the place up once it's been rebuilt, but if you want someone to put the stones all back in place, I'd suggest you try a stonemason."

"Oh, we have much bigger plans than that," said a light voice behind him.

Shin whirled in place. Standing behind him, where he could have sworn there was no one, was a pair of young men. A matched set, in fact, with features and clothing that were nearly identical save for a few subtle details. Shin itched to try drawing them, and he wished heartily that he had thought to bring his notebook and pencils with him. For these two, he would have even been willing to break out the colored inks.

"Who are you?" he asked, although he had a creeping suspicion that he knew.

"I am Sol," said one of them, making a theatrical bow.

"And I'm Luna," said the other, making a negligent wave of one hand. "As you've probably guessed, we're the gods who own this temple."

The little imp bounded from his perch, flinging his paws wide so that he could sail across the gap to land on Luna's shoulder. The god reached up a casual hand to rub his minion's fur.

 _What do you know,_ Shin thought abstractedly. _I guess some demons really do work for gods._

"Did I do good?" the little imp asked.

"You did fine, Dadacha," Sol assured him. "This man is exactly what we were looking for - and so conveniently placed too."

"I don't know what you mean," said Shin. He wondered if he ought to be doing something - bowing or kneeling or at least making some sort of salute. Instead, he just stood staring. It was hard for someone like him to do otherwise, when faced with the most beautiful living things he had ever seen.

"We," said Luna grandly, "have been looking for someone to run a particular errand for us. A man of courage and vision. A man, most of all, with imagination. In other words, an artist."

"I'm an artist," said Shin. The words came bursting out of him. No matter how realistic he might try to be, he so desperately wanted someone to recognize his skill, and if the _gods_ said he was an artist...

"Good," said Sol. "Now, what we're asking won't be easy, so pay attention. We need a particular artifact, something that can only be found in the underworld."

"Um," said Shin, trying not to let his discomfiture show. "I don't know how to say this, but, uh... isn't the underworld only accessible to, you know, dead people?"

"Ordinarily," said Luna, "but hear us out. Scattered here and there throughout the world are gateways to the various underworlds, where the lost souls can pass in and sometimes out again. They're guarded, of course, but we have ways of getting around that. We are, after all, among the greatest of the gods. We're more than a match for mere gatekeepers."

Sol nodded. "We'll get the gatekeepers off your tail. All you have to do is take the tool we give you, go down into the Realm of the Blessed Dead, and bring us back a chunk of underworld stone."

"That's it?" Shin asked. "Why don't you do it yourself?"

"Because," said Sol, as if that should have been obvious, "we're gods. We can't die. Only something mortal can pass through the gates of the dead without the permission of the lord of that realm. Our demon can't do it, and neither can we. This is the kind of errand only a human could run."

"But why me?" Shin asked.

Luna smiled. "Because, you're an artist. We told you. This stone we want... it's a thing of creation. It's the kind of thing that can birth new worlds, if used correctly. So that will be your payment. Go and get this stone for us, and we will let you use it to re-create this barren place that you hate so much. You could rebuild the whole temple yourself with no more than a thought, and turn this mountainside into a paradise with a whim. Only someone like you could turn it into a fit habitation for a god."

"It's a very big responsibility," Sol agreed. "So? Are you up to it, or should we give the job to someone else?"

"I... I need to think," Shin stammered.

"Don't think too long," said Sol. "Time is passing. We're not very patient."

"Very impatient, I should say," said Luna. "We don't have time to waste. Dally too long, and we might just give up on you and go find someone more motivated."

"We should do that anyway," said Sol. "Look at him waffling. He isn't going to do it. He hasn't got the willpower. He's just going to sit here in this pile of snow and rubble and dream about becoming an artist until he freezes to death. Let's go somewhere else. I'm sure there are a few artists in Lightflower who are better than he is, anyway."

"No!" Shin shouted. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn't help himself. The thought of this opportunity - of _any_ opportunity - going to some other artist made him frantic. The artists in Lightflower had plenty of people willing to appreciate them. He might never get another chance.

"Ah, so he has a bit of spirit after all," said Luna, smiling. "Very well. Then let's see you put your money where your mouth is."

He made a gesture, and something bright and shiny fell out of the air into his hands. He gazed down at it with a wistful expression, a bit like the way a lover would look at a sweetheart going off on a long sea voyage. Shin craned his neck, trying to get a better look at the thing. It seemed to be an axe made of solid gold.

"Here," said Luna, holding it out to Shin. "Take it. You'll need it."

Shin stepped forward, reaching out his hand, and Luna placed the axe in his grasp with an expression that said that parting with the thing was a physical wrench. When he let go, Shin found himself suddenly scrambling not to drop it. An axe made of solid gold, he realized belatedly, was extremely heavy. It tingled and burned against his skin.

"What do I do with this?" he asked.

 _Drop it and run,_ his instincts said to him. He squelched them.

"Walk past this temple and into the rocks beyond," said Sol. "Our demon will show you the way. About half a mile beyond the temple, there will be a cleft in the stone. It will look very narrow and cold and uninviting, and you'll have a powerful urge to avoid it and go somewhere else. That cleft is one of the entrances to the underworld. We'll be holding it open for you with our own power, so don't dawdle too long when you get there. Do you understand that? No matter how frightened you are, you _have to go through_."

"Otherwise we'll punish you," said Luna brightly, "and believe me, no matter how scary you think that cleft is, _we_ can be much scarier."

Sol continued as if his twin hadn't spoken. "When you get to the cleft, our demon will distract the guardian. Slip through as soon as you see an opening. Follow the path. It will be very dark, but it's quite safe. Just keep going straight ahead and don't answer any voices you may hear. Once you get to the bottom, you'll be in the Land of the Blessed Dead."

"You'll like that, won't you?" Luna added. "That's what every mortal wants, isn't it - to go to the Land of the Blessed Dead? You can take a sneak preview. But don't dawdle there, either, because sooner or later Sulfur himself will wander by and notice you aren't dead yet, and then there will be trouble. No, just go straight down the main road into the middle of town. Once you're there, you'll see a bright shining stone at the very center of the town square. It glows gold and red and orange, like fire - you can't miss it. Once you find it, just take that axe we gave you and hack off a piece."

Sol nodded. "It doesn't need to be very big. One about like this should more than suffice." He bent to pick up a chunk of stone about the size of a melon. "Once you have that, turn and retrace your steps as fast as you can. We'll hold the door open for you as long as possible, but I don't advise being too slow."

"Right," said Shin. "And what if I'm too slow?"

The two gods looked doubtful. They exchanged a glance and a shrug.

"Well," said Haru, after a moment's serious consideration, "you could try throwing your rock at the guardian's head. That might work."

"Of course. I should have guessed," Shin muttered. "So what happens if I manage to get past your guardian, go down into the realms of the dead, steal your rock, and bring in back?"

"We leave it up to you," said Sol. "Have some fun. Experiment with the stone a little and see what happens. I'm sure a bright young man like you will have the rules worked out in no time."

"We'll want it back eventually," said Luna, "and we will _definitely_ be wanting that axe back, so don't you dare leave it behind. Do that and you will be extremely sorry."

The worst part, Shin thought, was the casual way he said it. He wasn't making any empty threats, he was just telling it like it was. The axe felt suddenly even heavier in his hands.

"And you're sure," he said slowly, "that I can use this stone to... what? Make this place better?"

"You can make this place anything you want," Luna assured him. "Make the sky pink. Make the grass turn into silk ribbons. Turn the town into a palace of diamond. Whatever you want, for as long as the power of the stone extends."

"Just think," said Sol. "Other artists work in base materials - paint, cloth, clay, silly little things. You'll be working on reality itself, as the gods do. You'll practically be a god, not unlike that Pearlite fellow you admire so much. He was a human once, wasn't he?"

Shin felt his heart begin racing. Yes, that was what he wanted, all right - a way to turn this miserable town into something worthy of a real artist. Even if it was just for a little while, it would be enough just to see it...

"All right," he said. "I'm up for it."

Dadacha bounded onto his shoulder with one swift swoop. Shin felt the little beast's whiskers tickle his cheek.

"All right then," it said. "Just follow my lead."

* * *

Io was sitting at his desk, trying to get a little work done. He was unsettled today, for some reason. Perhaps it had something to do, he thought, with the knowledge that a pair of ancient and apparently inimical gods from the dawn of time were now on the loose and looking to stir up trouble. Io hadn't been around when they had lived, and felt he had no personal quarrel with them, but all the same he doubted their presence in the world was going to do anything good for Earth's financial stability. He picked thoughtfully through a heap of silver and bronze coins he had collected from somewhere, making careful calculations of the sort only he understood.

Then there was a rush of warm air and a scent of cherries and roses, and suddenly Ryuu was standing in his office. Io glanced up from his work to smile at him. No matter what circumstances might arise, he was always happy to see his husband. Today Ryuu was dressed for visiting the mortal plane, which meant eschewing the robes favored by gods in exchange for whatever was at the pinnacle of fashion in whatever place he happened to be visiting. Today, he was bedecked in a pair of flowing black trousers and a long red satin jacket with a fitted waist, high collar, and wide sleeves. It had been embroidered all over in a pattern of cherry blossoms and branches in black, white, and pink thread. He was also wearing a most remarkable hat.

"What... on _earth_... have you got on your head?" Io asked.

Ryuu laughed. "What, you don't like it? It's all the rage in the Jade Empire."

"I don't care if it's legally obligated in the Cinnamon Islands," Io retorted. "You look like you're trying to see how many tacky jewelry boxes you can balance on your head."

"I thought you liked jewelry boxes," Ryuu teased. "Even tacky ones."

"I like them fine, when they're in my treasure vaults doing their job," said Io. "I don't like them as headgear. Take that ridiculous thing off."

"For you, honey, I'll take off anything you like," said Ryuu with a wink, but he did take off the hat. He threw it across the room, where it vanished in midair just short of hitting the wall. The rest of the outfit, he kept, but Io had no objection to that. The jacket, at least, was really quite flattering. Unlike the rest of his ensemble, it wasn't a fabrication of godly power, but a real article of fabric and thread. Akoya, who was clever with a needle, had embroidered it for Ryuu and given it to him one year as a festival-day gift, the closest thing a god had to a birthday.

"If that's how you're feeling," said Io, getting up from his desk, "perhaps we had better go find Akoya? I'm sure he'd hate to be left out."

"Ooh, I like the way you think," said Ryuu. Nevertheless, he gave Io a quick hug. He was never one to pass up an opportunity to share affection. "So Akoya's here today? Where'd he go?"

"I told him I had some work to take care of," Io replied, "so he wandered off to amuse himself on his own for a while. I believe he said he was going to go look for a party to crash on Sapphire Street."

Ryuu smiled at that, and Io reflected the expression. There was always a party going on somewhere in the Land of the Blessed Dead, but it hadn't always been possible to find Akoya attending one. When they had first met Akoya, he had flinched at the idea of simply walking into a stranger's house and asking to be admitted to a party that was already in progress and to which he hadn't been invited. That had lasted only about as long as it had taken him to discover Sapphire Street.

While Io didn't enforce any sort of dictate on where his subjects could make their homes, it was true that people tended to flock together with people who were more or less of the same background and interests. Hence, over the years, the city had divided itself into sections where people could find those who were the most like them. On Ruby Road, you found the arenas and bars favored by the soldier class. In the Emerald Enclosure, the scholars of ages past happily spent their days having lengthy debates with each other and pottering through the Great Library that was a mirror of the one in the Heavenly City. In the Silver Sector, craftspeople made and distributed their wares to an admiring populace. And on Sapphire Street, just a few blocks from the Emerald Enclosure, the great artists, writers, and performers of the ages gathered together to discuss their arts.

Akoya had discovered this place one day when he'd been out exploring, and suddenly a door had burst open to permit an eager young artist to rush out and shout, "Oh, good, you're exactly who we need! Come in here and settle this for us." Then Akoya been hauled into someone's living room to mediate a discussion on the merits of a particular new painting someone had just created. Ever since then, whenever Akoya was bored and needed a change of pace, he'd wander into Sapphire Street to go looking for a salon to attend, and he always found himself welcomed. For one thing, he was the master's consort, and no one wanted to offend him. For another, he was the literal personification of beauty, and there wasn't an artist in the city who didn't yearn for a word of praise from him. As for Akoya, he adored being the center of attention, and appreciated the fact that no one would dare offer any unwanted romantic or not-so-romantic overtures towards him - not when he was already married to the man who literally ruled that particular world. He sometimes had to be very firm with an occasional importunate god, but these were mortals and they knew better than to cross certain lines around him.

"I don't know if we ought to bother him, then," said Ryuu, as the two of them started ambling towards the door. "He might not appreciate us breaking up his fun."

"He'll forgive us," Io assured him. "Especially if you give him something else to occupy his mind."

"His mind, sure," said Ryuu with a snigger. "Don't think I'm better than I am. That's not really one of the body parts I specialize in."

Io gave him a tolerant smile. "His heart, perhaps?"

Ryuu laughed. "Sure, that'll work."

The two of them made their way through the city. Everywhere they went, people in the streets paused in what they were doing to pay a brief homage to the master of their world. Io was a popular ruler, though he privately suspected that this was half because he was capable of providing a level of luxury that even the kings and emperors among them had never been able to attain, and half because he largely ruled by letting his people do more or less whatever they wanted.

 _Not that I really mind,_ Io thought, as he paused to shake hands with a passing woman. _As long as they're happy, I'm happy._

He felt something of his earlier malaise begin to lift. Everything was all right, really. Sooner or later, Aurite would find these two renegade gods and seal them back up where they belonged. Io would be safe down here in the underworld, and his consorts would be safe here with him. Everything was just fine...

They reached Sapphire Street, identified by a signpost studded generously with stones of the name it bore, and began searching for Akoya. It didn't take long. Any time he attended a party, it seemed, everyone else on the street who was feeling sociable gravitated to wherever he was.

"Sometimes," said Io, as he and Ryuu began navigating towards the largest and most boisterous of the parties, "I begin to feel myself outshone in my own domain."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Ryuu insisted. "You could go to parties too if you wanted. Everyone here would be happy to fawn over you just as much as they do him."

"I'll consider it," said Io.

He reached up and knocked on the door. He had barely touched the wood, however, before it was flung open and Akoya himself appeared, and any lingering negativity in Io's mind was struck clean away. Akoya knew his tastes, and he always made certain to be dressed perfectly for any occasion he was attending, even if that occasion was just "visiting my consort". He knew Io's weakness for jewels and costly fabrics, and today he was playing up to it in a gorgeous gown of violet silk, sewn all over with lavender pearls and accented with an astonishing amount of amethyst jewelry. Loops of precious stones hung at his wrists, ankles, and waist, and strands of them wound through his loosely braided hair. Most spectacular of all was a necklace paved in more amethysts ranging in color from deepest purple-black to palest lilac, arranged in an elegant geometric pattern. Akoya caught him admiring it and flashed a playful smile.

"Do you like it?" he asked coyly. "I picked it out just for you."

Io smiled at him. "You look dazzling as always. I hope you're not enjoying your party so much that you can't bear to let us tear you away from it."

"For the two of you, I can bear it," said Akoya. He called over his shoulder, "I'm so sorry, but I must be going. You know how it is. Do let me know when you'll be hosting another of these little soirees..."

With this and similar chatter, he extracted himself from the party and minced his way down the front stairs to where Io and Ryuu were waiting for him. Each of them took one of his hands and began leading him back towards Io's palace.

"I wasn't expecting to find you here," he said to Ryuu.

"I just felt like dropping in," said Ryuu. "I mean, everyone else was here, so why not?"

"Why not indeed?" Akoya agreed. "And should I take it that Io has completed his business?"

"For the moment, at least," said Io. "Enough that I can take some time off for the two of you."

"Gosh, I'm _honored_ ," said Ryuu, with an exaggerated fainting gesture.

All three of them laughed. Io's spirits had lifted completely now. This was all he had ever wanted. Sometimes he couldn't really believe it was all true. How did someone like him end up so lucky, with two such wonderful people in love with him and a whole world that had formed itself to perfectly suit his idea of paradise? It hardly seemed fair, that one person should be so happy...

It struck him as a sound first, a _crack_ that made him feel as though his skull had suddenly split in half. Then came the pain - pain like he'd never felt before, pain that tore through him as if he'd be ripped into pieces. Io collapsed where he stood, curling up into a little ball as he tried to hold himself together against that onslaught of pain. He was vaguely aware of the sound of screaming, but he didn't have the energy to think about whether it might be his own voice doing it. All he could think of was pain, pain, pain...

"Io!" Ryuu shouted. "Io, what's wrong?"

"It... hurts..." Io managed to choke out. "Get... help..."

"Just hang in there," Ryuu said. Vaguely, Io was aware of hands being placed on his shoulder and side, and the pain lessened just a tiny bit.

"Akoya," Ryuu snapped. "Go get help! Hurry!"

"Help?" Akoya's voice sounded dazed.

" _Help_ ," Ryuu insisted. "Get Hara. Get Gora, if you can find him. Get Yumoto, even, but find _somebody_ , fast!"

"Right," said Akoya, sounding dazed, and vanished. Io barely noticed.

"It's okay," said Ryuu. He was clearly trying to sound comforting, but Io could hear the fear in his voice.

Well, that was all right. Io was scared too, but all he could do was curl up, close his eyes, and try to endure the pain.


	10. The Dreamworld

_Get help, he says._

Akoya materialized in the halls of the Palace of the Gods and began running down them. A part of him resented Ryuu. Akoya didn't want to go for help; he wanted to stay by the man he loved and take care of him. The other part of him knew that this was the choice the two of them could have made. Ryuu couldn't heal Io of whatever was hurting him, but with his power over sensations, he could at least ease Io's pain. Akoya could do nothing for him but stand around wringing his hands. He was the one who had to go get help, but that didn't mean he liked it.

 _All right. Help. Where?_

His mind sorted through possibilities even more rapidly than his feet moved down the corridors. A lot of people might think of Akoya as a brainless beauty, and why shouldn't they? Sometimes it even amused Akoya to cultivate that image himself. If people underestimated him because they thought he was too fascinated by his own reflection to have any serious thoughts, that was all to Akoya's advantage. And then again, why should Akoya need to think? It was his job to make the world a more beautiful place, and he didn't need deep philosophical principles or complex mathematical formulas to do that. All the same, he wasn't stupid, and now he was thinking very efficiently about how best to find some much-needed assistance.

 _When in doubt, start at the top and work down._

He came to a junction, turned right, and continued moving. The room he was heading for was one that he'd never been inside before, but he had made a mental note of it anyway in case he needed it. You never knew when there might be an emergency. Well, this was an emergency, and so he made for the door and pounded on it.

 _And don't you dare not be home! If you aren't home, the next time I see you I'll drag you down to the Abyss myself!_

"Open up!" he ordered. "This is _important!_ "

The door swung open. On the other side was just who Akoya had been desperately hoping to see: Gora, looking a little rumpled, as if he'd been taking a nap before Akoya had shown up.

"What's..." he began.

"Something is wrong with Io and we don't know what," Akoya blurted. "He's not hurt but he's in so much pain he can't move. We need help."

That snapped Gora awake. He turned and shouted over his shoulder.

"Yumoto!" he called. "Get up and get moving! Hurry!"

A moment later, Yumoto appeared.

"What's up?" he asked, his normally childlike face serious.

"Get Hara. Get En, too, if you have time, and then get down to the underworld," Gora said. "Io needs us."

"Right," said Yumoto, and vanished in a burst of red sparkles.

"En?" Akoya repeated. "He's no healer."

"Neither am I and you came for me," Gora answered tersely. "Now, take me to Io."

Normally, Akoya would have been a little bit nervous about taking liberties with the ruler of the universe. Now, though, he just grabbed Gora by the arm and pulled. He was vaguely aware of a scent of cut wood and warm metal, and a sense of vast spaces and endless motion. It made him dizzy for a moment, and he began to fear that whatever had struck down Io had come for him next. Then the darkness cleared, and he and Gora were standing in the street where Io had fallen. Ryuu was still ministering to him, but it was clearly doing little good. Io's face was pale and sweating, and his breathing came in rapid pants.

Gora went and knelt on Io's other side and began examining him.

"How did this start?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Ryuu, his voice panicky. "We were just walking along, talking, everything was fine. Then he screamed and collapsed, and now he's like this."

Gora nodded and began making an examination, peering into Io's eyes and running his hands gently over his body as if searching for some injury. His face was set in a way Akoya didn't like. What was wrong? Gora was Fate. If something had happened that he didn't like, he ought to have been able to rearrange the world so that it had never happened in the first place.

As soon as Akoya had finished thinking that, Yumoto appeared, with En on one side and the dark-haired, bespectacled god of medicine on his other side.

"En," said Gora sharply.

"On it," said En. He crouched down next to Io and laid a hand tenderly on his forehead. Gently, he said, "It's okay, buddy. I've got you."

Io took a long, relieved breath, and then all the tension went out of him. His rapid breathing became slow and even. Akoya and Ryuu breathed sighs of relief as well.

"Don't relax too much," said Gora. "He's not fixed - En's just knocked him out so he can't feel the pain anymore. As soon as he wakes up, he's going to be back in the same fix. Yumoto, you know where to go next, right?"

Yumoto nodded. "Can I go now, or do you need me for something else first?"

"Get going," said Gora. "We might as well know for sure."

"Right," said Yumoto, and vanished again.

"What's he looking at?" Ryuu asked, as he watched Hara begin an examination of Io's body. "What's going on?"

"I don't know yet," said Gora. "Let's not jump to any conclusions."

 _He knows,_ Akoya thought. _He knows what this is, but he hopes he's wrong. What is he thinking?_

He watched tensely as Gora and Hara continued their examination and murmuring to each other in low tones. It was impossible - Io was a god. Nothing ever ought to be able to hurt him. How had he ended up in such dire straits without any warning?

When Yumoto rematerialized, all of them jumped.

"Well?" Gora asked.

Yumoto's face was downcast. "It's broken, all right. Someone took a big piece out of it."

"Demon's blood," Gora muttered. Akoya winced he had never heard Gora swear before. "That's not good."

"What?" Ryuu snapped. "What's going on?"

"It's Io's crystal," said Gora. "It's broken."

"What crystal?" Akoya asked. "Somebody explain to me what's happening, and explain it _right now_!"

It was probably a mark of how serious all this was that no one told him to control himself. Instead, Gora just sighed and sat back on his heels, looking seriously up at Akoya.

"When this world was created," he said, "it started out dark and bare and empty. It didn't take on full life until Io bound himself to it and gave it its form and purpose. The reason this particular underworld looks like a jewelry store run rampant is because that's what Io thinks paradise should be, and this world is literally an extension of him. The bond between them is centered on a crystal at the center of the world."

"That big orange one?" Akoya asked. "That flickers all the time?"

"That's the one," said Gora. "Well, someone has broken the stone, and Io is tied to it, so he's feeling the break as if someone just hacked a big piece of out him."

"So what do we do?" asked Ryuu. "And how would anyone even do such a thing? _Why_ would they do such a thing?"

"I can think of a few reasons," said Gora. "None of them very good. As to how... well, in case you forgot, there's a missing axe that's still unaccounted for. I reckon something like that could cut through Io's stone like it was no more than cake."

"So what will happen to Io?" asked Akoya, looking down at his consort's sleeping form.

"I'm not sure," said Gora slowly, "but I think he'll just go on hurting unless someone can either get the stone back in place, or cut his tie to it."

"Then cut the tie!" Akoya snapped. "That's what you're good at, isn't it?"

"Missing axe," said Gora, holding up his hands. "That's delicate work you're talking about. If I tried to do something like that with my bare hands, I could end up doing even more damage - might end up destroying this whole level of reality and Io along with it."

"Then make it so someone didn't steal the stupid rock in the first place," said Ryuu. "You can do it - I've seen you. You did that thing where the guy was a wizard, and you rewrote his history so he was a newspaper guy instead."

"I did that with help," said Gora, "and I had my axe back then. And that was just one young human. He hadn't been alive very long, and he hadn't really had time to affect the universe very much yet. Io has centuries of complex history behind him. Fiddling with any aspect of his reality is likely to have long-range consequences. I _will_ try," he added hastily, at the look Ryuu was giving him, "but only as a last resort. It would be much better if you found the stone again. If I can get my hands on that... well, the stone itself has only existed as an individual stone for a few minutes now. That much history is easy to wipe out, even without my axe. If we can just find where it went and get me within range, I can pull it free of Io."

"And then he'll be all right?" asked Akoya.

"He'll be fine," Gora said. "But the longer you go without finding it, the harder it will be, especially if someone is using it for something."

"We'll find it," said Ryuu grimly. "And when I find the person who did this, I will _set him on fire_."

"I'll help," Akoya agreed. He clenched his hands, almost able to feel the weight of his sword in his hands. He would dearly love to find whoever was responsible for this and chop them into little bits, slowly, so they could suffer as poor Io was suffering.

Gora stood up. "There's nothing much more I can do here. One thing I can do, though, is work on my new axe. I've already got one started. It will take a few more days to complete, though..."

He trailed off, and Akoya understood what he was saying. The longer they put matters off, the worse things would get. The stone would accumulate more history, making it harder to cut free of Io, and Io would continue to suffer. En and Hara could eliminate his pain for now, but they had other duties besides taking care of Io, and those duties would go undone as long as they were sitting here. And if Io were forced to endure that pain, well... gods didn't die, not of illness or old age, but they could be hurt so badly that they would destroy themselves rather than continue to endure it.

 _That can't happen, not to someone as gentle as Io. I won't let it end that way!_

"I'll help you too," said Yumoto unexpectedly. "I'll pull in some good luck for you. I'll pull really hard."

"Thanks," said Ryuu. He looked down at Io. "Something tells me we're going to need some good luck."

He knelt down to give Io a kiss on the cheek.

"Don't worry," he said, stroking Io's hair. "We'll get this guy and turn his hide into a new coin purse for you."

"If that's what you want, you had better get moving," said Gora. "There's no time to waste."

Akoya nodded. "We'll start by talking to the gatekeepers. There's no chance one of Io's own people did this, so it must have been someone from the outside."

"Good call," said Ryuu. He reluctantly stood up and began walking towards the nearest exit. Akoya fell into step with him. He desperately wanted to stay with Io a little longer, to kiss him goodbye as Ryuu had done, but he didn't. Now was the time to be practical, for once in his life.

 _I'll kiss you as much as you like when we get back,_ Akoya promised,so please, hang in there.

* * *

Io was not really sure how he had gotten where he was. Come to think of it, he wasn't really sure where he was at all. He seemed to be lying on a curl of something smooth and slightly yielding, a bit as if someone had figured out a way to make a sofa out of jelly. It bounced slightly when he moved. Curious, he opened his eyes and tried looking around. The world he found himself in was very... blue. He was suspended in an immense world of swirling blue - dark blue and pale blue and almost-white blue. Little flecks moved through it. Sometimes he thought he was in a great sky full of swirling clouds and stars, and then he reconsidered and thought perhaps he was underwater and surrounded by bubbles. Sometimes a distant streak of something bright sailed past him, and he couldn't decide whether what he was seeing were comets or fish. It was beautiful, it was strange, and he had never seen anything quite like it.

"Kinda pretty, don't you think?"

The voice was familiar, friendly, and directly behind him. Io carefully rolled himself over and found that En was sitting a few feet away, comfortably lounging on another wave of vague blueness, his head propped on one elbow.

"Where are we?" Io asked.

"My place," said En.

Io carefully sat up and looked around. Infinite blueness stretched in all directions.

"Your room?" he asked tentatively. He had been in En's room before. It was also very blue, but it featured more conventional articles of furniture, like big fluffy sofas and deep soft armchairs, and a floor that was effectively one big mattress. There was a bed, too, but Io had never dared to attempt lying on it. Just _looking_ at it was enough to make a person sleepy, and he had a sneaking suspicion that once he lay down on that cushiony expanse, he'd be too drowsy and comfortable to ever want to get up again.

"Not my room," said En. "That's just window dressing. Geez, it's like people forget that I'm one of the oldest and most powerful gods." He drew himself up a little straighter - not an easy move for someone who was still lying on one side. "No, no, this is my _place_."

"Please explain," said Io.

"You ought to understand," said En. "You have a place of your own, after all. Why shouldn't I?"

"Ah," said Io, relaxing a little. He thought he understood now. "So you're saying this is your _world_."

"Now you've got it," said En. "Welcome to the Dreamworld."

"I never knew such a thing existed," said Io.

En raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you? Haven't you ever heard someone heading for bed saying 'Well, I'm off to Dreamworld now!', or seen someone lost in thought saying, 'Sorry, what were you saying? I was off in Dreamworld somewhere.' How can you go to a place that doesn't exist?"

"But I thought... Well, never mind," said Io. In retrospect, he thought he really should have known. Of course En would have a private Dreamworld of his very own. En had always talked about the dreams he handled as though they were physical objects, so why shouldn't they come from an actual place? A thought occurred to Io, and he suddenly sat up straight. "So _that's_ why you're asleep all the time! You're not just being lazy - you're in here!"

En grinned. "And the grand prize goes to Io." He made a movement with his free hand, pulling a medallion on a ribbon out of thin air and tossing it towards Io. Instinctively, Io held out his hands and caught it. The medallion felt like gold, even to his hyper-attuned senses. He held it to his tongue and tasted it, then carefully bit down on it. It was still gold, on a silk ribbon.

"So everything you imagine here is real?" he asked carefully.

"Pretty much," said En. "You know, within certain restrictions. But yeah, basically, if you can dream it, this place can provide."

"Well," said Io, impressed. "No wonder you don't care to spend much time in the real world."

"To tell the truth," said En, "I like the real world. It can get pretty boring having everything all my own way all the time. And I don't usually bring real people in here with me, so it doesn't exactly do much for my social life. I come here to get my job done, not to play. Well, not _just_ to play."

"I see," said Io. He turned that thought over in his mind. "Why don't you usually bring other people here?"

"Well," said En, a little sheepish, "unless you're me, spending too much time in a place like this that isn't quite real... it starts to mess with people's heads after a while. It's just not healthy."

"Oh," said Io. He considered that for a moment. He knew the question he needed to ask next. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. "So... why did you bring me here?"

"Don't you remember?" En replied.

"Not really," Io admitted. "All I know is that I woke up and now I'm here."

"Think back," En suggested. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Um... Ryuu showed up wearing that ridiculous hat. He started teasing me, and I suggested we should go find Akoya so he wouldn't be left out, we went to Sapphire Street to pick him up, and... oh!" It all came back to him then: the sudden, mysterious pain, Ryuu sending Akoya for help, Gora appearing, and then cool hands touching his forehead and a voice telling him everything was all right. He looked accusingly at En. "You put me to sleep!"

"Yup," said En, unrepentant. "What, you didn't think I could?"

"But..." Io began, and couldn't think how to finish. Did he really want to be awake and in agony right now?

"Right," said En. "I mean, I'm sorry I didn't ask for permission, and I'll wake you up again if you want, but I really don't think I should. To tell the truth, you're in sad shape right now. It's either this or drugging you, and you know that's risky."

Io nodded. There weren't a lot of drugs that worked effectively on gods. To be more precise, a lot of drugs worked on gods, but their systems were designed to flush them out again at a moment's notice. They didn't digest and metabolize things the way humans did. They just converted matter directly to pure energy, storing it in the aura of magic that surrounded them and gradually bleeding it off into the atmosphere if they didn't need it right away. A god could subsist quite comfortably on gravel and pencil shavings if they had a mind to, and even the most potent drug couldn't affect them for long. Even if it was meant to help them, the instant they tried to draw on their power for any reason, there was a chance the medicine would be converted into magic and they would be left without whatever effect it was meant to be producing.

"So it's better for me to be asleep," he said. He scowled. "Imp's nests!"

"I know what you mean," said En. "Sorry about that. Tough luck."

"So what do I do now?" Io asked.

"Do?" En repeated. "You don't do anything. You're asleep."

"Yes, but you're the god of dreams," said Io. "You have to have some way around this."

"Hey, I may be a god but I'm not omnipotent," he said, holding up a hand in protest. "I can't get around all the rules. All I can really do is keep you company until your crew gets back and fixes you."

"Fixes me?" asked Io, seizing on that idea. Maybe he wouldn't be stuck here for very long.

En nodded. "Turns out someone stole a chunk of your binding stone, and you're feeling the effects. If they get the rock back, Gora can put everything back to normal and you'll be good as new."

"And if they don't?" Io asked.

"That's... where it gets tricky," said En reluctantly.

"Oh, _wonderful_ ," Io growled. "So you mean I'm stuck here indefinitely, unable to do anything, while someone wanders around the countryside with a chunk of my life force? What are they planning on doing, turning it into the world's rarest jewelry?" That, he mused sourly, would be one ironic way of ending his career.

"I'm pretty sure there are better things you can do with a rock like that," said En evasively. "In the meantime... well, this is the dream world. You can do pretty much anything you want here. You name it, and I can make it happen, or at least, make it so you can't tell it's not happening."

Io considered that for a moment. Anything he wanted? Any fantasy he desired? If he could live out any daydream he wanted, what would he choose?

An image floated up in his mind. It had been early autumn, around the time when Akoya left the Heavenly City and returned to the underworld to live out the winter in peace. He, Io, and Ryuu had decided to spend Akoya's last day of the year among the celestial gods having a picnic. Io could remember it all perfectly: how the sun had slanted all around them like curtains of pure gold, how the fallen leaves had scattered around them like rubies and amber and citrine. He could remember the taste of the wine and cake, so much like the night they had celebrated together the first time Akoya had visited the underworld, the night before he had proposed. He remembered the way Akoya had cuddled so sweetly against his side and the feel of Ryuu's clever fingers running through his hair and tracing the line of his jaw as he tried to coax Io into a kiss. He remembered the warmth of the sun and the refreshing chill of the wind. He remembered thinking that he was perfectly and utterly happy, that nothing in the universe could be as good as that moment.

"I want my life back," he said softly.

En shook his head. "Sorry. If there's one thing I can't do, it's real life."

"Then what was the point of bringing me here at all?" Io snapped. He knew it wasn't fair to take this out on En, and he didn't care. "Do I have to just sit here and wait? I can't do that!"

"What else is there?" En asked.

Io narrowed his eyes. The line had been delivered with a convincing nonchalance, but there was something in En's eyes, something evasive...

"You tell me," said Io.

"Um," said En. "I didn't say anything."

"No, but I saw you thinking it," said Io. "This is a Dreamworld, isn't it? Thoughts are more real here. I don't think you can get away with lying to me here."

"Rats," En muttered. "But seriously, I probably shouldn't tell you. It'll just give you ideas."

"Again, Dreamworld," said Io. "I have nothing else to do but sit here and get ideas, so unless the idea you want me to get is one about how many times I can hit you before something stops me..."

"All right, all right," said En. He actually went so far as to sit up so he could hold both hands out placatingly. "No need to get violent."

"So tell, then," said Io, "or else I will. I certainly feel like being violent, and there's nothing else to do."

"Well, all right, but I want to go on record as stating that this probably isn't such a good idea," said En. He raked a hand through his shaggy hair. "All right. The thing about dreams is that they're all just a little bit connected, at least in here. I can wander from one dream to another pretty much at will. If I want to, I can also give other people the power to travel through dream-space. Mostly I only do it for my priests - people who have trained for years to master the art. It isn't easy. You can get lost forever if you don't know what you're doing. You can get so caught up in someone else's dream that you can't find the way back, and maybe neither of you ever wake up. But in this case, that might be a good thing. Or a bad one. I'm not sure."

"What do you mean?" Io asked.

"Well," said En thoughtfully, "some people say that all gods are connected, deep down - that all power is the same power, just channeled in different ways. Everyone's powers meet, if you dig down deep enough. I don't know if that's true, but you know, there _are_ places where one god's power connects to another's, and we can lend strength to each other."

Io nodded. He knew. He had gotten used to doing that sort of thing with Ryuu and Akoya as a matter of course. With Ryuu, their powers met at the place where the desire to have money met the desire to have the security that would attract a mate. With Akoya, it was at the place where the desire for beautiful things met the desire for valuable ones. With both of them, it met at the place where death met the creation of new life. At this point, the three of them were probably so entangled that Io imagined Akoya could, at a pinch, step in and take over as Lord of the Blessed Dead with a minimum of difficulty.

"Okay," said En, "so our powers entangle a little, too. Not much, but a little."

"Sleep is the little death," Io remarked.

"That's part of it, yeah," said En, "but what I was thinking is that the one place where I have anything to do with the actual underworld is when I'm finding souls that have gotten lost in the Dreamworld because they wandered too far from their bodies and couldn't get back in time, and I give them a nudge in the direction where they ought to go. I've only done it maybe half a dozen times, all throughout history, but I _have_ done it, and that means those paths are also a little bit yours."

"I think I see what you're getting at," said Io. "So you're saying that I don't necessarily have to stay here - that I could wander the dream paths and try to find the person who stole my stone from that angle."

"It's a possibility," said En.

Io frowned. "So why didn't you want to tell me?"

"Well, you see," said En. "I've never sent a god on the dream roads before. Nobody but me, but I belong here. You don't. The thing is, when a mortal goes onto the dream roads, their soul leaves their body behind. But you're a god - you don't exactly have a body. I mean, you and your body are the same thing. I'm not really sure what would happen if part of you is lying on the ground in your realm and the rest of you is wandering around on the dream roads. Maybe nothing. Maybe something bad. Who can say?"

"I see," said Io. He thought a moment. "So... why is it okay to leave your self behind and wander around the dream roads?"

En smiled. It was not his usual dreamy smile, and Io was taken aback by it.

"I'm the god of dreams," he said simply. "I _am_ the Dreamworld."

"Oh," said Io.

 _Mental note: STOP underestimating En._

"So," said En, as if that chilly moment hadn't happened, "what do you think? Do you want to take the risk? You don't have to. It probably won't do much good if you did, and I have no idea what kind of risk it would be."

"I want to do it," said Io firmly. He had never been any good at just sitting around doing nothing, even with the loveliest of daydreams to entertain him. Usually when he found himself daydreaming, it was either about his treasure, which was always near at hand, or about one or both of his consorts, and they were usually willing to oblige him, so why dream about something when he could enjoy it in reality?

"Well, okay, then," said En. His tone said that he had warned Io of the risks, that Io was a grown god and understood what he was getting himself into, and therefore En had no more responsibility to stop him. He stood up and stretched. Here, at least, his normally rumpled robes were smooth and lay perfectly on his frame. Dreams clearly agreed with En better than reality. "Ready when you are."

"I'm ready," said Io. He stood up. The ground under his feet felt wobbly and unstable, possibly because it didn't really exist.

"Any idea where you want to go?" En asked.

Io thought about that.

"You're the expert," he said. "I'll trust you. Find me something that looks out of place, and we'll start from there."

En nodded. "I can probably do that."

He reached out a hand, and Io stepped forwards to take it.

 _What have I gotten myself into?_ he wondered. Then his hand closed around En's, and both of them were gone.


	11. The Snow Man

The air of the upper world felt colder than it ever had before. Shin leaned against a stone, trying to catch his breath and feeling the icy air burn his lungs.

 _Did I really just do that?_

It had happened just the way the two gods had told him it would: their little squirrel familiar had teased and taunted the guardian god until he had run after it, and Shin had slipped through the opening it had been guarding and descended into the darkness. And beyond the darkness, there had been...

 _No, I can't think about that._ Mortal eyes weren't meant to see the realms of eternity. It had made his senses reel just to be there. His eyes had been dazzled by the glittering surroundings, and had balked at registering the shapes of the spirits who dwelled there. The air down there had made his head swim - it was too pure, too rich for lungs accustomed to the thin air of the high mountains. It had been beautiful, and it terrified him, and he had a feeling that even if he somehow distinguished himself enough later in life that Aurite offered him the chance to dwell there forever, Shin would find himself asking politely to be sent to the Land of the Peaceful Dead instead. Or to the Accursed Dead, for that matter. Anything but _that_ again.

But he had the stone now. It rested in his hands, warm and somehow not like stone at all. It pulsed gently, as if it were a living thing with breath and a heartbeat. It _felt_ alive. How could something that was as hard as stone still feel like flesh? It still glowed with its own strange, fiery light. The longer he gazed into it, the more he seemed to be able to make out intricate patterns in the way its glow pulsed and shifted. Watching them soothed him, somehow, so he continued watching until his heartbeat began to sync to its rhythms and he started to feel better.

 _What can I do with this, I wonder?_ Luna and Sol had promised him that the stone had power, but they hadn't explained in any sort of detail how to use it. Still, they had seemed confident that he could work it out.

 _So go on, Shin. Prove you're the artist you always knew you were._

He turned his head this way and that, searching for inspiration. A glimmer of gold caught his eye. Of course - the axe. He'd carried it tucked under one arm while he made his escape, preferring to carry his new treasure with both hands. Now it was leaning against the side of the mountain just as he was. He contemplated it.

Part of being an artist was being able to pick out patterns. Good art involved good composition, knowing how to put the right things in the right places so your pattern was neither too busy nor contained too much blank space. Perhaps that was where he ought to start. If he was going to use this stone, he was going to need to have the right pattern to use it in. So, how did you convince a magic stone to let you rewrite your reality?

Thoughtfully, he set down the stone on a patch of moss, then picked up the axe again. It buzzed against his hand, as if it disapproved of what he was doing. He ignored it. Instead, he looked around until he found a boulder that was about the right size for what he wanted. With a swift, decisive stroke, he drove the blade several inches into the top of the stone. Another stroke from the other direction, and he'd severed a chunk out of the top. Very carefully, he used the blade of the axe to pry the section out and send it rolling down the slope of the mountain. Now his boulder had a crude hollow in the top, about the size and depth of his mother's best cooking pot. It was also, not coincidentally, about the size of the stone. Shin set the axe aside with some relief and reached instead for the golden stone.

"Be part of this world now," he told it, and jammed it into the hollow.

It went in with a hollow _boom_ like a dungeon door being slammed. The earth shuddered from the impact, and several small stones shook loose. Shin felt the stone slot into place as if it were his own heart being shoved into the hollow. He screamed as he felt himself being wrenched open by the force. For a moment, he was no longer himself. He was every stone, every tuft of grass, every animal and bird, every stray breeze, everyone but himself.

Then he fell backwards and landed on his rear with a thump that jarred him back to his senses. He lay there for a moment, seeing stars.

 _I am getting tired of this,_ he thought vaguely, as his heart set to racing again.

But the giddiness soon passed. Within a few breaths, he was able to sit up and look around. Nothing around him seemed to have changed, but at the same time, everything felt... different. Shin had the oddest feeling that the world around him was holding its breath, watching silently as it waited for orders.

A breeze blew past him, and he shivered.

"I wish it were warmer," he muttered, half to himself. "Or that I'd brought a better coat."

There was a _flump_ , and a coat fell out of the air in front of him. It was quite a nice coat, made of leather and fur, just the sort of thing one wanted on a day this cold. But even as Shin had that thought, he realized that the air playing around him was no longer cold, but gently warm.

"Huh," he said thoughtfully. He picked up the sleeve of the coat. It had weight and substance in his hand, and smelled like new leather ought to smell. He looked up at the sky.

"I wish it was snowing pink snow," he said. After a split-second of cogitation, he added, " _Warm_ pink snow."

The sky did something peculiar. Suddenly it was full of mauve clouds, and tiny pink snowflakes like flower petals were drifting all around him, as warm as the wind that played around him but somehow not melting. Shin scooped a handful of them up and pressed them in his fingers. They stuck together, the way snow usually did. He threw them at the wall, and they went _splat_ in the way a good snowball should.

Shin took a breath and let it out again slowly.

"Okay," he said, "I think I can do this."

* * *

 _I've never had to go this way before._

The thought struck Akoya disagreeably. He had always cherished a certain sense of superiority. Even at his lowest ebb, there had always been some part of him that had felt rather proud that at least he was failing more spectacularly than anyone else ever had. And why shouldn't he feel superior? He was the great god Pearlite, most beautiful being in existence. Even as a mortal, he had been so lovely that practically everyone on earth, in the heavens, and in the underworlds had been coveting him. He had courted and won what were arguably the two most desirable men in existence: Sulfur, whose wealth was beyond legendary, and Vesta, who was the literal embodiment of desirability. He was welcome everywhere, from the pinnacle of the Palace of the Gods to the darkest depths of the Land of the Accursed Dead. When his powers were at their height, he was one of the most powerful of the gods, capable of almost anything. When he had first left his mortal life behind, Sulfur himself had gathered his soul and delivered it to the Heavenly City personally.

All of which explained why he had never been forced to walk down one of these pestilential hallways.

Akoya wasn't technically a death god, but you couldn't hang around Io for this long without picking up a few things. He knew, for example, that there was a lot that could happen to a soul once it became detached from its body. Most of them turned immediately towards the nearest path to the underworld and headed for the Place of Judgment, where they would await Aurite's verdict. Some of them were collected. Sometimes they were lucky, and the collection was done by one of the celestial gods who had taken a shine to them and decided to take them on as an attendant. Most of the time, they were collected by one of the underworld gods whose job it was to gather up lost souls and guide them to their next stop. Very occasionally, a soul would slip past everyone's notice and wander the world as ghosts until someone found them and helped them move on. That was one of Io's favorite chores. He did so love to collect things, after all. Then, too, there were the ones that managed to slip into a dead body - their own or someone else's - and wander the world as a remnant, and that was one job Akoya was happy he never had to deal with. But the point was, Akoya had been one of the lucky ones. When he had died, it had been with Sulfur right there beside him to make sure everything went smoothly. He'd never had to blunder around trying to find his way down to the underworld, and he didn't much appreciate needing to blunder his way out.

"Ouch," he complained, as he paused to rub his stubbed toe. "I just walked into a wall."

"Well, don't do that," said Ryuu.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Akoya groused. "Why is it so dark? We're not supposed to need light. We're gods."

"It's an underworld thing," said Ryuu. "Stop complaining, okay? It doesn't help."

"Neither does yelling at me," Akoya retorted.

He turned to glare at the place he'd last heard Ryuu's voice. Akoya was willing to admit that he loved Ryuu dearly, but there were still times when he got on a person's nerves.

 _We're too alike, that's the problem. We need Io to mediate between us..._

He sighed. "I"m sorry. I'm just..."

"I know," said Ryuu's voice, quiet in the dark. "I'm scared too."

"I just... I don't know what we'd do without him."

"Me either," said Ryuu. "So we're not going to let anything happen to him."

Akoya sighed again and started moving. "It has happened. That's the problem."

Ryuu didn't have an answer to that. They started walking again. After a moment, Akoya felt warm fingers touching his.

"Here," said Ryuu. "I"ve been this way a few times before. I know the way better."

Akoya closed his hand around Ryuu's and gave it a gentle squeeze. He hated to admit it, but he felt a little bit better.

"How long do you think it will take?" he asked. "To get to the exit, I mean."

"Probably not long," said Ryuu. "It just feels long because it's so dark. I know what you mean, though. I like the dark but this is kind of ridiculous."

"Perhaps I'll have a word with Io when he gets back," said Akoya. "See if he'll let me rearrange things a little. Give the newly dead a properly solemn welcome - something with a little more dignity than stubbing their toes in the dark."

"Souls don't have toes," said Ryuu automatically. Then he added, "But that doesn't mean Io won't let you do it. He really is a sentimental old softy, underneath it all."

"I've noticed," said Akoya. "Sometimes I really do envy you for having had so much more time with him than I have."

"Right from the beginning," said Ryuu softly. "From the very beginning."

"Tell me about it," said Akoya.

There was quiet for a moment, as Ryuu gathered his thoughts.

"I remember being born," said Ryuu dreamily. "I came out of a fire, did you know that? It was a forge-fire. Some guy was trying to impress a woman, and he got the idea of making something and giving it to her, because he wanted her to like him, you know? And, I mean, it wasn't much of a forge fire because these people hadn't figured out much about metallurgy and stuff, but he figured it out for her. And that was where Io and I came from - me from the fire and Io from the earth he crafted the metal from."

Akoya closed his eyes, trying to imagine it: this long-ago innovator, trying to invent something no one had ever invented before, trying to win over a woman with style instead of strength, and from out of those fires of passion had come something that would change the world forever...

"So there we were," said Ryuu. "And we were just standing there looking at each other and kind of going 'wow, look at this thing that's happening in front of us, this is really amazing'. And then Io was like, 'I wonder if we could make something like this happen again,' and I said I bet I could, and then we were off."

"And nothing has been the same since," Akoya murmured.

"It just keeps getting better," said Ryuu. "That's one thing that bugs me about Kinshiro. He's always wanting everything to stay the same. He doesn't like it when the status quo changes."

"Funny, when you think about it," Akoya murmured. "He was so happy to see mortals changed into humans."

"Yeah, he's okay with it once you've proven that the changes you've made are good ones," said Ryuu, "but it's getting him to agree things ought to change in the first place that's the problem. Seems to me, we could use a little more change around here. Have you noticed? In the old days, things used to change all the time. People were inventing fire and the wheel and the slingshot and all sorts of nifty stuff. But how much has changed from the time you were born until now?"

Akoya thought about that. A lot of people had been born and died, a few small towns had become large cities and a few large cities had become small towns. Kingdoms rose and fell. And yet... now that he thought about it, Ryuu was right. When it came to technology and culture, things seemed to move very slowly, if they changed at all. Things went in and out of fashion in the usual cycles, but it was rare to see anything truly new and innovative.

"The biggest new thing I can think of," said Akoya thoughtfully, "is that talkative little fellow who invented the newspaper. That was clever."

"I have some thoughts about that," said Ryuu. "You remember what happened just before, right?"

"How could I forget?" Akoya replied. He had fought in the Chaos War. He'd gone toe to toe with Chaos himself, and that wasn't a thing anyone forgot in a hurry. For one thing, Chaos had cut off a large chunk of his hair. Akoya didn't easily forgive people who messed with his hair.

"Right, then," said Ryuu. "In the beginning, there was Chaos. That's what all the holy books say, and the people who were there tell me it's true. So what if that's what it was? What if there was still a sort of... aura of chaos still sticking to things, back when everything was new and shiny? What if that was what made it possible for things to change so rapidly? I mean, Chaos isn't necessarily _evil_. It's a creative force, too, not just a destructive one."

"And you think the reason this new idea came into being was because Chaos had been so close to that place on earth?" said Akoya thoughtfully. "That could be. It makes a certain amount of sense, but I don't think it's worth letting him out again to test the hypothesis. While he might be a creative force _in theory_ , in practice I think he may be rather more in favor of destroying the things already here before he makes new ones."

"You could be right about that," Ryuu agreed. "And if that's how he feels, I sure don't see any way of stopping him."

"Anyway, I don't see why changing things is necessary," said Akoya. "Things have been ticking along quite nicely for a long time now, and everyone seems happy. Why rock the boat?"

"That's a point of view," Ryuu agreed. "Anyway, it looks like somebody has decided to do some boat-rocking with or without Chaos's help."

"Can we push them overboard and drown them?" Akoya asked.

"If you can do it, be my guest," said Ryuu. "Me, I favor setting them on fire. I'm good at setting things on fire."

It sounded like lighthearted banter, and if Akoya had known him any less well, he might have been a little reassured. As it was, he was actually becoming slightly _more_ worried. It wasn't like Ryuu to go this long without indulging in casual flirtation. The fact that he was abstaining meant he was worried. Akoya wasn't used to his lighthearted husband being worried about anything. Io was usually the one who did their worrying for them.

"I think I see light up ahead," said Akoya, trying to lift the mood. "Does that mean we're almost there?"

"We're almost there," Ryuu agreed, and Akoya heard his footsteps pick up their pace. The two of them hurried together towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

What they found was a disgruntled-looking gate guardian, shifting from foot to foot as though he really didn't want to be there to meet them.

"I don't know how it happened," he told them.

"How what happened?" asked Akoya. Ryuu fell back a little, letting him take the lead. Akoya might be the god of spring, but he could still do icy hauteur better than Ryuu could.

"I'm not sure," said the guardian. "I was just standing here guarding the door like always, and suddenly this little imp ran up and started climbing all over me, and when it dashed off I chased after it. I was only gone a few seconds, honest."

"You _left_ the gate?" Akoya asked.

"Only for a few seconds!"

"You left. The _gate_."

"I didn't think anything was going to happen!" the guardian protested. "I've stood in front of this gate for over a hundred years and nothing more dangerous than a mountain goat has come this way. Only now..."

"Did you catch the demon, at least?" Ryuu asked.

"No, it got away," said the guardian. "But just look - look over there!"

He pointed. Akoya peered. There was a ridge of stone blocking most of his view, but above it, he could see what looked like the pinnacle of a tower, or perhaps the spire of a temple.

"It looks like a city," he remarked.

"Yes," said the guardian, "but it wasn't there this morning."

Akoya and Ryuu exchanged glances.

"Well," said Akoya, "that sounds like something we ought to look into, doesn't it?" He glanced at the gate guardian. "You're off the hook for now, but don't think I won't be telling Sulfur about this later."

The two of them vanished and reappeared on top of the rocks, where they could get a better view. They stared a moment, taking it all in. Then Ryuu turned to give Akoya a look.

"Well?" he asked. "Anything you'd like to tell me?"

"Don't blame this on me," said Akoya tartly. "Do you really think I'd design a tower like that?"

Ryuu shrugged. "Looks fine to me."

"Well, it's not. Just look at those windows. Those are Meridan Empire arches, but the window designs are pure Archadian. And that zigzag design running around the edges of the walls and doors? I _think_ that's meant to be a Corrick tribal design, but they've gotten the angles all wrong. And don't even ask me about the tower roofs. I have no idea _what_ the designer was thinking there."

"I stand corrected," said Ryuu. "So what you're saying is that this tower is architecture by someone who doesn't know a thing about architecture."

"No," said Akoya thoughtfully. "More like someone who has heard of architecture in bits and pieces but has never had the chance to learn it any organized setting. Certainly none of _my_ subjects would ever create something so gauche. And yet..." He closed his eyes, testing the area with senses beyond the normal human five. "And yet, I think this is one of mine. How irritating. I shall have stern words with him."

"I'll enjoy seeing that," said Ryuu. "Let's go find him and tell him all about it."

They bounded down from the ridge of rock and began dashing over the fields of stone and scrub at a pace that was half running and half simply flowing over the terrain the way wind or water might. The further they went, the more signs they found that something around here wasn't quite right. A little streamlet contained a number of colorful tropical fish, their jewel-like scales vivid against the gray and brown landscape. Most of them were already dead or dying, unable to survive so far from their warm salty seas. A few colorful flowers peeked out among the more commonplace weeds. Akoya could feel the ache of them as they struggled to bloom out of season. Most of them were of no breed he had ever seen or heard of before, more like a child's drawing of flowers brought to life than any real flower. Some of them were all petals, with no pistil or stamen or any way of making any more flowers. Akoya clucked his tongue at the waste.

"Hey," said Ryuu, stopping and staring. "Did you see that?"

Akoya paused too. "What? I didn't see anything. I was looking at the flowers."

"Well, you'd better look at the sky. I think that sheep had wings."

Akoya scanned the air warily, already raising a hand in an attempt to protect his hair from anything that might fall on it as a result of flying sheep. He couldn't see anything, but he could definitely hear a few distressed "baas" off in the distance.

"Let's keep going," he said. He found himself hoping that their quarry would be waiting for them somewhere indoors.

 _Whoever is doing this, they haven't thought it through at all. They're just creating whatever they think of, without stopping to consider if it makes any sense or how it all fits together. That's no artistic principle I ever taught anyone!_

A little further on, they came to a road. Akoya prodded it cautiously with a foot. The road was striped red and white, and was slightly sticky.

"Peppermint?" Ryuu said aloud. "Who makes roads out of peppermint?"

"People who aren't worried about it melting," said Akoya. "Don't you see what's going on here? Someone has taken Io's crystal and they're trying to use it to impress their will on the world, just as he impressed himself on the underworld. Only... it can't work. They're human."

Ryuu grimaced. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Well, this is likely to get messy, isn't it?"

Akoya nodded grimly. The thing about gods was that they tended to be rather set in their ways. They changed slowly when they changed at all, and even then it was normally a matter of degree rather than kind. For example, Kinshiro deciding that there was a place in a well-ordered universe for a quiet after-dinner drink was mostly just a matter of him deciding that something that helped people relax and bond with each other contributed to the overall harmonious running of society, not his suddenly deciding that wanton drunkenness was a good idea. You would never see one of the craft gods abruptly deciding that they were bored with blacksmithing or woodworking, or whatever it was they did, and deciding to become a god of music or generosity instead. Their specialties were their selves, and to give up whatever it was they did would destroy them.

Humans, on the other hand, were changeable creatures. They grew, they discovered new interests, they fell in and out of love, they developed unsuspected talents. A woman who spent half her life cooking and cleaning and tending her children could discover one day that she had a knack for chemical formulae and become an alchemist or greenwitch without fundamentally changing her nature. For a human to assume the role of god took a certain kind of person - someone like Akoya or Arima who was so single-minded that giving up all that potential to change was no great hardship. It had been much harder on Atsushi, and he was _good_ at what he did, and had lots of friends helping guide him through the process of giving up his humanity.

But whoever was doing this had forced themselves into the role of god of this particular patch of land without any guidance or training, and probably not a lot of warning as to what was going to happen to him when he tried. He was tearing this place apart, and he was probably going to end by splitting himself into fragments along with it.

"Well," said Ryuu, after a moment of contemplation, "I guess that means we'll be getting our rock back, one way or another. Nasty way to go, though."

"Yes," said Akoya slowly. An unpleasant thought was beginning to arise in his mind. "It is a very nasty thing to happen to someone. Ryuu, does it seem to you that there has been an awful lot of thievery going on around here these days? First Fate's axe, now this. It's almost as thought someone were gathering these things... perhaps for some purpose..."

Ryuu looked at Akoya speculatively. "I thought we agreed that this was a human's doing, though."

"How did a human manage it, though?" Akoya said. "Think about it. Somehow, whoever did this must have known how to get into the underworld without being detected, must have known the stone was there, must have had some way to chip off a piece... I know precious stones almost as well as Io does, and that keystone is harder than diamond. No ordinary mortal man with a hammer and chisel could have taken off a chunk of it, not if they chipped from now until the end of time. But what if someone put him up to it? Someone who has already put someone up to stealing Fate's axe, and who therefore had a handy cutting tool all ready and waiting?"

"That's no good, though," said Ryuu. "Why would they just let their patsy keep the stone for himself? The way I heard it, they got that axe off of poor Katari pretty darn fast."

"They might do it," said Akoya, "if they knew he was likely to blow himself to bits in pretty short order."

"You might just be on to something," said Ryuu. He frowned in thought for a moment, then brightened. "Do you think he still has the axe on him?"

"That's a possibility," said Akoya, also perking up. "If we hurry, we could get it _and_ the stone back before any more harm can be done."

"Then let's not waste any more time around here," said Ryuu. He started hurrying up the path. "Ugh, it's sticky."

"The least of our worries, dear." Akoya let himself shift into a shape that was comfortable for him, that of a swirl of flower petals borne on a cool spring breeze. Ryuu, not to be outdone, became a streak of reddish flame, skimming above the candy path and leaving a melted trail in his wake.

They reappeared at the heart of what could have been, by some definitions, a city. It had a lot of buildings, at any rate. Akoya turned in a slow circle as he absorbed the sight. The houses and shops around him were all made of something glittery, pale blue, and semitransparent. It looked very much as though someone had decided that arctic ice was a suitable building material. Akoya thought it might have been, if the weather had been behaving normally. He was very sensitive to seasonal changes, and every fiber of his being was telling him that this was meant to be a cold place, not a warm one. The fact that someone had decided they wanted to have it both ways annoyed him. He turned in a slow circle, contemplating his surroundings.

"It's kind of pretty," said Ryuu, "if you like the ice castle look."

"Mm," said Akoya thoughtfully. "It's also a bit repetitive."

Ryuu blinked. "Come again?"

"Take a closer look," said Akoya. "Look at the buildings further down the street and compare them to the ones in front of us."

"Huh?" said Ryuu, and then, "Oh!"

Akoya nodded. The buildings in front of them, taken individually, each seemed to have their own character. If Akoya tilted his head just so, he could barely see the shapes of the buildings they had once been before someone with godly ambitions got hold of them. Those were simple, serviceable houses and shops - nothing he would have been excited about, but nothing to be ashamed of either. But he could also see that the original town had been tiny, only a single street with maybe a dozen houses and half as many shops. This was a city with hundreds of buildings... nearly all of which were patterned after that same set of original structures.

"Someone," he observed, "is either not very creative or being very lazy."

"Does it make a difference?" Ryuu asked.

Akoya shrugged. "No, but it irks me. If someone is going to go stealing things from our consort, they could at least do him the honor of making good use of what they steal. The more I look at this, the more I think we have found someone whose ambition outstrips his abilities."

"Well, let's find him and sort him out," said Ryuu.

He began turning this way and that as well. Akoya copied his example, trying to find the source of whatever was causing this weirdness. There were people nearby, he could see, but all of them were wandering around murmuring in awe and no small amount of fear. Akoya could guess that these were people for whom nothing interesting ever really happened, and they were hardly taking this change in environment well.

 _If I were a human who thought he were a god, where would I go?_

Well, he technically _was_ a human who thought he was a god. His friends did keep telling him that gods were just ideas that thought they could be people, so what was so odd about being a person who thought he was a slightly different kind of person? It gave him a useful perspective on this sort of thing.

"The temple," he said.

Ryuu turned to look in the direction Akoya was looking. "You're probably right about that one. Do you want to just blow it up with him in it? Because I bet this blue stuff would melt." He raised one hand, a fireball already burning there.

"And risk damaging Io's stone? Are you out of your mind?"

Ryuu winced. "Good point. Okay, we do this the hard way."

They wove their way through the sparse crowd of frightened onlookers. Akoya felt sorry for them. They were clearly terrified and wanted to go home, except that home was what they had become terrified of.

 _When I find this fellow, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind!_

They reached the temple. It was the focal point of the spire they had seen in the distance, and it was no more to Akoya's liking now that they were seeing it up close. He had a lot of experience with temples by now. His own great temple in Lightflower was obviously his favorite, but he had to admit that some of the others were pleasant as well. This one struck him as wrong in a way that had nothing to do with the architecture. He hesitated on the brink of going up the steps.

"Something wrong?" Ryuu asked.

"I have... a bad feeling," said Akoya.

Ryuu frowned. "Is this a general sort of bad feeling, or a _professional_ bad feeling?"

"I"m not sure," Akoya admitted. He was not himself prescient - the only ones among the gods who had any sort of gift for predicting the future were Fate, Chance, and Cerulean - but he _was_ the god of new beginnings, and he could usually tell when something bad was about to happen when it was in his immediate future. "There's something here we don't know that we should. I think we should think about this a little more..."

"We don't have _time_ ," Ryuu insisted. "Io _needs_ us."

Raising his fireball high, he stalked towards the front doors of the temple and pressed his burning hand against them. They melted into sizzling water and steam.

The inside of the temple was dark. It shouldn't have been dark - there were any number of windows, all apparently made of something that might have been stained glass and might have been some sort of tinted ice. Nevertheless, the inside was shadowy, and Ryuu paused a moment to get his bearings. Akoya scampered to follow him, straining to see through the dark. At the far end of the temple, he could pick out something that was out of place: a flicker of orange and gold, resting on something that might have been an altar. There was something moving nearby.

Akoya had a sudden, gut level sense of _No, not good, run!_ , and then it was too late. Light flared up inside the temple, blue and cold and repellant. At the center of that glow was a man. At some point in history, he had probably been reasonably nice-looking. Not handsome, but pleasant, in a mild, shaggy-haired, scholarly sort of way. Akoya could still get that sense from him, even beneath all the glamour.

But it was so _hard_ to see through the glamour when the surface was so shiny. The man they saw before them now was a man of ice and snow, with perfect white skin and glittering hair, and eyes like two dark sapphires. He was glaring at them irritably.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, and his voice, at least, was still human. Apparently he could change the way everything around him looked, but he hadn't figured out how to change the way they sounded.

"You stole something," said Ryuu. "We want it back."

"Well, you can't have it!" the man replied. "I need it more than you do!"

"That's a matter of opinion," Ryuu muttered.

"Please," said Akoya, feeling the sensation that someone needed to pour oil on these troubled waters. "You don't understand. We need that stone. Sulfur is dying. If you don't give it back to us, it will mean the end of him and the end of his level of the underworld as well."

 _And it might mean the end of us,_ Akoya thought. How long would he and Ryuu want to live if Io was dead? And Ryuu was the god of pleasure. What would happen to a race of gods who faded away when they grew too miserable if the living avatar of enjoyment disappeared?

 _Is this what those two wanted when they set this up? To trigger a domino effect like that?_ If that was true, he'd dedicate his last days to hunting them and dragging them down with him.

"I don't care," the man muttered sullenly. "What do I care about the afterlife when I'm miserable now?"

"Well, maybe we can help with that," said Ryuu persuasively. "I'm good at making people not miserable. That's what gods are for. Why not give us back that stone and let us see what we can do to make things better for you?"

"No. You've had your chance," the man snapped. "Now it's my turn, and I don't need you anymore. I can make this world do whatever I want. _I'm_ a god now!"

"No you aren't," said Akoya, more sharply than he'd intended. "Trust me, I know how it works. I've seen a few humans becoming gods before, myself included, and the rules say this isn't how it works."

The snow-man's grin was manic. "Then I'll make it so that isn't the rule anymore. I can do anything I want!"

"You don't understand!" said Ryuu. "Some rules you can't change!"

"Shut up!" the snow-man barked. He made an impatient gesture with one hand, and Ryuu's mouth snapped shut. Akoya blinked. It was hard to say which of them looked more surprised. The snow-man stared down at his hands, then at Ryuu, then back at his hands. Akoya's _get out of here now_ instinct grew even stronger. He began edging towards the door.

"Stop... right... there," said the snow-man.

Akoya felt his feet rooted to the floor. The snow-man grinned.

"Well," he said, "I guess I really am the god here now."

Ryuu looked horrified. Akoya just rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"I _told_ you so."


	12. The Message

Io walked the dream roads.

It was an odd experience. Not that he wasn't familiar with dreaming. All gods dreamed, to some extent or another. From what he'd gathered, their dreams were more vivid and linear than those that humans experienced, but it was still basically the same thing. When he slept, he usually dreamed about counting treasure, or about amusing himself with his consorts, or about doing his work among the living and the dead. What he'd told En was true: he'd never wanted anything but the life he'd had.

But it was clear to him now that other people weren't so lucky. He walked a winding path through outcroppings of other people's dreams. They loomed around him like enormous bubbles, gently wavering and semitransparent some of them twice as tall as he was. If he stopped and peered into them, he could catch glimpses of the dreams that humans were happening. Most of them were intriguing just because they made no sense, but Io only watched those for a brief while before he lost interest. He was too practical for anything that held so little meaning. Some of them probably would have fascinated Ryuu, but Io averted his eyes. His own love life might be exciting by some people's standards, but he'd never felt the need to share it with anyone outside his little family and didn't care to look in on anyone else's fantasies. But the ones that dreamed of wealth...

 _Stay on the path,_ he warned himself, forcing his eyes away. En had made it very clear to him: he could travel to anywhere he liked as long as he stayed on the path and kept his destination fixed in his mind. He could technically step into any dream that interested him, but if he did that, he might not be able to find his way out again, and would go on wandering from dream to dream until En figured out where he was and hauled him out again, and there was no guarantee when or if that would happen. No, he had to stay focused, and that meant not wandering off into any fantasy that caught his eye.

 _I need to find the dream closest to my stone._

He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got there, but he meant to try. If he could find someone who was dreaming somewhere near the source of all this trouble, he might be able to get some useful clue he could bring back to En.

The bubbles were beginning to thin out. Io wondered why that might be. Was he making his way to a part of the world where there weren't a lot of people, and therefore not a lot of minds to do the dreaming? Or had he managed to get off-track somehow, and was now doomed to wander lost for time immeasurable?

 _Don't think about that. Keep going._

Even as he thought about that, he felt a vague tug. He paused, startled. Was a dream tired of waiting for him to wander into it, and trying to haul him in instead? Or... no, it didn't feel like that. The tug was familiar. It was the same sort of nagging tension he started to feel when he'd been away from the underworld too long. It was very faint, and was localized on one point on his body, not everywhere at once like it usually was.

 _My stone!_ It was nearby, he was sure of it. If he could follow that tugging sensation, he could learn exactly where it was, and he could go back and tell En, and En would tell the other gods, and everything would be all right. Feeling faint with relief, Io hurried forward.

In retrospect, he thought he probably shouldn't have hurried quite so much. He should, he thought, have realized that there was a reason why the bubbles seemed to have thinned out. It wasn't that they had.

It was that the one directly in front of him was so big that it filled his entire field of vision. He realized that, too - just as soon as he stepped into it.

* * *

Once upon a time, a long time ago, Aki and Haru had been gods of the sun and moon...

The problem with being the gods of the sun and moon was that there really wasn't a lot to do. Aurite had actually been rather pleased, at first, with their innovations involving moon phases and seasons, but once those had been sorted out, the job more or less did itself. In a world where most of the gods were still too busy trying to get the universe set up and running, it was hard for Aki and Haru to find anyone else to share their leisure with.

At least if there wasn't work, there were distractions. The world was new and full of interesting things, and the twins wandered over the unexplored terrain, seeing all the things that had never been seen before. Deserts, mountains, waterfalls, oceans, fields, forests, all of them unfolded before their wondering eyes. It was a happy time for them - almost like being back inside their egg again, only the world wasn't contained inside a shell, but went on and on, revealing new wonders around every turn. If they had simply been turned loose on the universe without having met other people first, they might have been perfectly content, never needing or wanting anyone's companionship but each other's.

Then one day, they came over the crest of a hill and found a consultation going on. Gora was there, yes, and so were a number of other gods, all of them in deep discussion with one another. A few of them were arguing, but most of them were simply talking animatedly, often over top of each other, and scribbling things in the air with lines of power or building up tiny illusions of something the twins couldn't quite make out. They hesitated a moment, trying to make up their minds whether or not to join the crowd.

The decision was made for them when Gora looked around, noticed them, and wandered over to speak to them.

"There you are," he said, smiling. "I thought you might show up."

"What's going on?" Haru asked.

"We're making plans," said Gora. "Want to help?"

"What kind of plans?" Aki asked cautiously.

"We're building a city," said Gora. "A whole other level of reality just for the gods. I've got big ideas for it. We'd like your opinions."

Haru hung his head. "I don't think it matters. Nobody wants us around."

"That's one of the reasons we're building this city," said Gora. "I want to encourage all the gods to work together. They won't do that when they're all scattered around the universe. I hope you two will feel at home there, too."

"Do you really think we'll be welcome there?" Aki asked.

Gora nodded slowly. "In time, I think you will."

"Even if we aren't good for anything?" Aki muttered.

"You have a purpose," said Gora. "I don't know what it is yet, but you'll figure it out someday, or someone will. I don't think there's anything in the world that hasn't got a purpose."

"Well, if you say so, we'll believe you," said Aki, and Haru nodded.

Gora smiled at both of them. "Good. Now, why don't you come down and help us figure out how to put this all together? We're going to need a sun and moon for this world too, and you two are our experts on that."

The two of them smiled tentatively.

"All right, then," said Haru. "If you really want us..."

Gora laughed. "Of course I want you! Now, come on."

He turned and started back towards the crowd. Aki and Haru followed. Their mood was cautiously hopeful. Maybe Gora was right - maybe, in time, the other gods would get used to them and accept their presence. Maybe they would be happy in this new world Gora was creating. Someday, they might even find out that they really did exist for some purpose. If nothing else, there was a service they could perform for Gora just now, and that meant a lot.

However, they had only made it a short distance before a figure detached itself from the crowd and flung itself at Gora.

"Hey, Big Brother! Come over and see what we've been doing!"

The twins scowled at this interloper. They waited for Gora to brush him aside, to point out that he was talking to _them_ right now. Instead, Gora only laughed and said, "All right, show me," and allowed himself to be led away.

"Who is that guy?" Haru muttered. "Who does he think he is?"

One of the nearby gods overheard him.

"You don't know who that is?" he asked. "That's Chance, Fate's brother."

" _Brother?_ " the twins repeated in unison. They stared at each other, thoroughly offended. Who did this presumptuous little interloper think he was? Aki and Haru understood about brothers. _They_ were the only gods who had any right to call themselves brothers. They had been formed of the same material and hatched from the same egg - what else could they possibly be? But Chance was only a created god, no different from any of the other gods. He had no more right to call himself Fate's brother than En or Aurite did.

The other god looked rather startled at their vehement reaction, and quickly turned his attention back to his work. The twins ignored him. Their enthusiasm for the project had waned as quickly as it had appeared.

"Why choose him?" Haru asked. He was still staring at Gora and Yumoto with betrayal in his eyes. "If he had to have a brother, why not ask us? We know he likes us."

"I don't know," Aki muttered.

"Maybe... maybe we're not good enough?" Haru offered hesitantly.

Aki didn't say anything, but then, he didn't have to. He and Haru always understood each other perfectly. If Gora was calling someone his brother, it was because he had chosen to, as an honorary sort of title. He would never give such a title to the two of them. Everyone saw them as useless outsiders, and he was the greatest being in existence. He would never tether himself to them. Not unless they could prove somehow that they were worthy of him.

"Do you think there's any hope?" Haru asked.

Aki frowned thoughtfully. He was looking down at the plans the other gods were making, as they designed their new world.

"There has to be," he said. "We'll just have to work at it. We can prove we deserve it." His eyes glittered as he took in the faces of the other gods - everyone who had ever told him that he and his brother were worthless and didn't belong. "We'll prove we're better than any of them..."

* * *

The world Io wandered into was full of ice. He paused a moment, trying to get his bearings.

 _Am I lost? I must be lost. I need to find the path again..._

But no, he could still feel his missing piece pulling at him. It was close, so tantalizingly close that he almost felt he could reach out and take it in his hands. Unfortunately, he was there in spirit only, and this was presumably a dream. He suspected his task was going to be more difficult than just walking up to his missing stone and carrying it away as if it were just another offering.

He turned in a small circle, taking everything in. If he could have made himself believe the town he was looking at was made of diamond instead of ice, he might have liked it. As it was, the place was only chilly and slightly unreal. Yes, he thought, that was the word for it. It reminded him of the scenery at the plays he and his consorts were fond of going to. It would fool a casual viewer from a distance, but any sort of close examination would reveal it as nothing more than a painted facade. Curious, he reached out to lay a hand on the wall of one of the icy buildings - and jerked it back again. It had felt cold, and melted slightly under the warmth of his touch. He hadn't imagined a dream could do that.

"Something is fishy here," he said to himself.

He began wandering down the street in the direction the stone was pulling him. No one in the town seemed to see him, which lent credence to the idea that he was in fact in a dream, but then, mortals rarely saw gods unless the gods themselves were making an effort to be seen. When he reached out to touch the strange buildings or the peppermint-candy streets, they felt the way they should have, and when he tried to pick up a broken chunk of the candy, he lifted it as easily as he would if it were real. When he found a patch of weeds growing at the back of one of the buildings and tried to tug at them, though, his hand went straight through them.

 _Interesting. I wonder what that's all about._

He continued to ponder the question as he walked. He wasn't entirely certain, now, whether he was still in a dream or whether he'd somehow meandered back into the real world. It felt, he thought, a bit like a combination of the two. How did you even get that?

The trail he was following led him to the doors of a temple, or at least, something that looked like a temple. He paused there, weighing his options. It was generally considered bad form for a god to step inside another god's consecrated space without permission - not absolutely forbidden, but certainly rude. Io couldn't tell just who this space was sacred to, but it clearly had a power signature on it and that presumably meant that Io should keep out. On the other hand, he could feel his missing piece just inside.

 _If this is a dream, it won't matter that I went inside a dream-temple. If it's real... well, if some god or other is sheltering the human who stole my stone, I have the right to intrude._

He took a breath and stepped through the entrance.

What he found was worse than he had expected. At the front of the room was what appeared to be a man carved from solid snow and ice. He was clearly in an agitated state, pacing back and forth in front of the altar, gesticulating angrily as he railed about something. On the altar behind him were a softly glowing chunk of stone and a golden axe. What riveted Io's attention, though, were the other two figures in the room. They glowed softly to his sight, a pair of divine figures crouching, humbled and bowed, at the foot of the stairs leading to the altar. They did not raise their heads as Io entered, though they should have been able to sense his presence. Io could sense _them_. This, at least, was no dream.

Io forgot about his missing stone. Ryuu and Akoya were pieces of him every bit as much as the keystone was, and he wasn't about to stand for anything happening to them. He rushed across the room to kneel beside them.

"Ryuu! Akoya! What's wrong?" he cried.

They didn't react at all, and when Io reached out a hand to shake Ryuu's shoulder, it passed straight through him. Io jerked back as if stung.

 _Okay. I want to know what's going on right now._

If he was in a dream, he should be able to interact with every part of it. If he wasn't in a dream, he shouldn't have been able to interact with any of it. This strange half-and-half world baffled him. A lifetime of dealing with economic principles had not prepared him for a situation like this.

Or had it?

 _When in doubt, call an expert._

En would know what to do about this. Too bad he wasn't here. Then again, he _had_ made a show of telling Io that he was ruler of the dream roads. Time to make him put his money where his mouth is. Io retreated from the ice temple and found a place in its shadow where he could hide. He paused there for a moment, trying to collect himself, to push away the awful image of his beloved consorts frozen on the floor. It took longer than he would have guessed, but at last, he managed to clear his mind and focus on what he needed.

 _En, can you hear me? There's a problem. I need your help. Please, can you come here?_

Nothing happened. Io held his breath, counting seconds: one, two, three, four... He had reached fifteen and had just started to think he'd have to give up and look for some other solution when he caught a whiff of vanilla and lavender. He heaved a sigh of relief as he saw En appear before him in a glimmer like sunlight on water.

"Took you long enough," he said.

"Hey, give me a break," said En. "I had to figure out how to get here, didn't I? And this isn't a normal place."

"I noticed," said Io dryly. "What _is_ going on here?"

En looked around, hands on his hips, head tipped back to take everything in. He looked like the very picture of a man making a professional assessment.

"Weird," he concluded.

"I'd like more than that, if you please," said Io.

"Somebody's managed to get a dream and real life all jumbled up," said En. "It's interesting. I've never seen anything like this before."

Io bit his lip. En was one of the oldest gods. If he hadn't seen something before, chances were, it had never happened.

 _But no one has ever stolen a piece of my keystone, either..._

"I might be able to hazard a guess at what's going on," said Io slowly. "I think someone must be using my keystone to try to bond with this part of the world and impress their will on it, the way I did for the underworld. The difference is that the underworld wasn't already fully formed when I got to it, the keystone wasn't already bonded to someone, and I'm not mortal."

"So you think he's only managed to do a halfway kind of job of it?" En mused. He turned around slowly, studying the landscape. "Yeah, I can see that. That's why this feels like a dream - it's not real. It's just what he imagines it ought to be, and he's got enough oomph at the moment to make everyone else see and feel it too."

"Then how is it that he's managed to capture Akoya and Ryuu?" Io asked.

En shrugged. "Some ideas are pretty darned powerful, especially when you can get other people to believe them, too. I mean, us gods run on belief anyway."

"So what are we going to do?" Io asked. "Is there a way to make them wake up?"

"Well, waking people up isn't my specialty," said En thoughtfully, "but with you here to back me up, there might be something..."

* * *

The sun was going down.

From where Akoya knelt, he could just barely see the last rays of light fading in the icy blue windows, turning the room from a sparkling blue diamond to something like the bottom of the sea. It was getting colder, too. Gods were generally not troubled much by temperature, but Akoya was the god of spring, and being encased in ice like this was making him feel dull and sleepy. He was starting to feel that if whatever force was pinning him in place didn't let him go soon, he might just fall asleep and not get up.

 _I can't let that happen. Io needs me..._

Anger stirred inside him, and he pushed hard against his invisible bonds. He was the embodiment of spring, the force that drove winter out of the world for another year, and he was not letting some impertinent man with delusions of grandeur push him a round. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on warmth, sunlight, on sprouts pushing their way relentlessly throughthe frozen earth. The ice around him began to melt. Very slowly, he managed to raise his head.

The snow-man, who had up until that point been too busy giving vent to all his frustrations to pay attention to his captives, paused in his rant to glare at Akoya.

"Don't you dare," he snarled. "You've never listened to me before, but you're going to listen to me now."

Akoya felt the power bearing down on him, trying to force him to bow his head once more. He resisted.

"I can listen better," he said through gritted teeth, "if you aren't forcing me to stare at the floor."

"You shouldn't have forced _me_ to stare at a lot of frozen rocks my entire life!" the snow-man shouted.

"I did no such thing," said Akoya. "You wanted talent and I gave you talent. It isn't my fault or my responsibility that you couldn't figure out what to do with it. Loathe as I am to admit it, my influence only goes so far."

"You're just making excuses," the man snapped. "If you really have blessed me, then why won't anyone look at my art? It's your _job_ to make people appreciate beautiful things."

"It isn't my job to make you a success," said Akoya. "If that's what you want, you should ask my darling husband. Oh, wait, you can't, because you've stolen his stone and now he's unconscious and probably dying. That might put a crimp in your plans, if the god of prosperity dies."

For a brief moment, the snow-man was actually taken aback. His outline wavered, and for a moment Akoya could clearly see the man he had been before all this had begun. Then the illusion snapped back into place.

"I don't need him," he said. "As long as I have this crystal, I can do everything myself."

"Actually," said a new voice at the entrance to the temple, "you might be a little wrong about that."

Ryuu made a little nosie of surprise. Akoya's head snapped around to stare at the apparition in the doorway. Leaning casually against the wall, in that nonchalant manner he did so well, was En.

"Would you look at that," said Ryuu under his breath. "He's actually doing something."

"I heard that," said En loftily, "but because I'm so nice, I'll choose to ignore it." He began to saunter down the aisle. "Nice place you got here. Kind of cold, though. For someone who doesn't like snow and ice, you sure have a lot of it."

The snow-man glared at him. "Who invited you?"

"If you want to get technical, you did," said En. "I'm the god of dreams, after all, and this is your dream. That means I get to come in if I feel like it. Today, I feel like it."

The snow-man looked annoyed and slightly alarmed. "Where are all you people coming from? Why can't you just leave me alone already?"

"We're gods," En explained casually. "We meddle in other people's business. It's what we do. You wanted to be a god, right?"

"I didn't think it would be this much trouble!"

"Hoo, boy," said Ryuu. "You thought being a god would be _easy?_ "

"Someone didn't do his research," Akoya murmured.

The snow-man scowled. "Maybe you are the god of dreams, but this _my_ dream, and I don't want you here. Go away!"

He made a shoving gesture, and a wall of swirling white snowflakes rushed towards En. Akoya flinched at the cold, but En only yawned and flapped a hand at the snow. It parted around him and dissolved into mist.

"Nice try," he said. "Funny thing, though - I've been doing this kind of thing longer than you have. I'm stronger than you. You can't take me on my own ground."

"But... this is my place," the snow-man said, sounding baffled.

"It _was_ your place," En explained. "You turned it into a dream. Now it's mine."

"But that's not fair!" the man complained.

"Maybe you should make better decisions," Ryuu said cheerfully.

Akoya was only half paying attention to the repartee. He had caught a glimpse of something moving around the perimeter of the room, something nearly invisible - a sort of golden reflection in the temple's icy walls, a shadow with no one to cast it. It had, Akoya thought, a familiar sort of gait.

 _Well, now, dear En, I wonder what has motivated you to steal the spotlight just at this moment? Normally you'd rather give it to anyone else and let them do all the work. Why, it's almost as if you're trying to create a distraction..._

Gently, he probed at the field of power that was keeping him captive. It seemed to be entirely focused on holding him in place, but it wasn't actually preventing him from exercising his powers.

 _Sloppy work,_ he thought. He liked to think he would have done a better job back when he'd been new at this god business. Now he bent his mind towards gradually enhancing the divine aura around En. Under other circumstances, Akoya might have even enjoyed himself. En was a handsome man even without Akoya's help. _With_ his help, En's hair gleamed like real gold even in the dim light, his blue eyes seemed as fathomless as the night sky, and the subtle glimmer of his robes rivaled the stars. The aura of power around him, normally invisible to human eyes, manifested itself as a swirl of glowing blue water and shimmering bubbles. Akoya was rather pleased with the effect, and the would-be snow god was clearly awestruck.

"See, that's what I wanted!" he said, pointed. "How are you doing that?"

En preened a little. "It just comes naturally."

He made a few little flourishes, causing the ripples of power around him to spin faster. Fascinated, the snow-man crept closer for a better look.

The golden shadow took off in a flash, flinging itself at the crystal the glittered on the altar. Akoya tried not to stare. A shadow on the wall shouldn't have been able to pick up a stone in three-dimensional space, but this one did. Akoya felt the pulse of power, and caught a brief whiff of amber and sandalwood. The room shook.

"What... what?" the snow-man yelped. Bits of the roof began to tumble in on him. They dissolved partway down, turning into glittering snowflakes and vanishing.

En grinned. "You know, I thought that would work."

"What's going on?" the man complained. He _was_ a man, now, no longer a perfect being of snow. In fact, Akoya thought he recognized him now - an artist named Shin who sometimes made offerings to him. Apparently he had decided to take matters into his own hands - not something Akoya approved of. Akoya found his shaggy hair and mild face an improvement over his overly-polished perfection.

"That's what happens when you try to take things that aren't yours," said En.

Akoya stood and rushed towards the altar, and Ryuu followed close behind him. Standing there, semitransparent and faintly glowing, was Io.

"Are you all right?" Ryuu asked. He reached for his consort, but Io backed away.

"I'm not fully here," he said, "and I don't quite know what will happen if you try to touch me."

"How are you here?" Ryuu asked. "I mean, I thought you were back in the underworld."

"I suppose you could say I'm dreaming that I'm here," said Io. "Really, the things En can do that he doesn't tell us about are amazing."

"Well, great," said Ryuu. "Let's take this stone and get you back in your body where you belong."

"No, please!" Shin begged. He took a few steps towards his altar, but the icy floor was melting and growing slippery. He skidded, flailed, and fell on his face. On his hands and knees, he scrambled forward, reaching forlornly towards the stone. "I just wanted... something beautiful..."

"Get it some other way," said Akoya sternly. He put himself between Io and the artist, just in case.

"There is no other way!" Shin protested. "I've tried and tried!"

"Then try something different," said En. "Or at least, leave us alone. This kind of thing won't fly." He started towards Io. "Here, give that to me. I'll take it back through the dream roads with me. No one will mess with it there."

"No!" Shin shouted. The room shook again, and Akoya heard the walls creaking with the strain of trying to obey two people at once.

"Whatever you're going to do, do it fast!" he shouted at En.

En gave Akoya a look that said clearly, _You're telling ME to go fast?_ , but he picked up his pace anyway. He bounded over the prone figure of the fallen artist and reached for the stone. Io extended his arms, holding it out to him. They were within inches of each other when Akoya caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Wait!" he shouted.

It was too late. Something gleaming and sharp had just impaled itself into En's shoulder. En gave a hoarse bellow and fell, clutching at the wound that was now spilling golden ichor down his blue robes. At the same moment, Io gave a wail of frustration and vanished. The stone dropped to the floor with a clatter.

"Well, well," said a new voice. "It looks like we got here just in time."

Luna strode forward and pulled his polearm from En's shoulder, eliciting another cry of pain. Sol appeared next to him, holding his own shears at the ready.

"It seems we did," he agreed. "Why, just think. If we'd gotten here just a split-second later, we might have lost this pretty thing for good."

He picked up the underworld stone in his free hand and contemplated it. Akoya found himself staring, trying to make sense of these two strangers. He could hardly make himself believe that these were the Sol and Luna he had heard so much about. From what Kinshiro had told him, these two were monsters, abominations, things that never should have existed, and he had imagined them as such. In his mind, he had pictured warped, misshapen things, more along the lines of demons than gods. These two, though... they were beautiful. Lithe, graceful, perfect in face and form, it was hard to believe that there was anything haphazard or accidental about their creation. Even viewed individually, they were striking, but taken as a pair, the way they moved in perfect unison created a symmetry that made every gesture they made like a dance.

 _I think Kinshiro must be wrong. I don't think these two were mistakes. They may be dangerous and desperate, but there's nothing malformed about them._

Unfortunately, they were holding Io's missing piece, and they looked very much as if they were planning on just disappearing with it.

"You give that back!" Akoya shouted.

Luna shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't do that. We need it more than you do."

"You what?" Ryuu spluttered. "Like hell you do! If we don't get that rock back, Io's going to die!"

"Really?" Luna looked mildly surprised. He scrutinized the stone. "Ah, yes, I see. Our operative didn't do a very good job cutting this, did he? Loose ends all over the place - how sloppy."

"I did the best I could!" Shin complained. "I don't see anything wrong with it."

"I suppose you wouldn't," said Luna disdainfully. "Well, it's of no use to us when it's still bonded to another god, so I suppose we'll have to fix it. Brother?"

"I've got it." Sol bounded lightly across the room to snatch up the golden axe from where it rested against the altar. He took it up in his hands with an expression that suggested this was the most enjoyable thing he'd done in centuries.

"What are you...?" Akoya began.

Sol brought the axe down. For a sickening moment, he thought that Sol was going to shatter the stone to pieces, and Io's chances along with it. Instead, he swung it _past_ the stone. The blade encountered some invisible resistance, then cut through it, to the accompaniment of several high-pitched twangs. It sounded as though he'd taken an axe to a harp instead of an empty patch of air.

"There," said Luna, looking pleased. "All fixed. Don't say we never did anything nice for you."

"What did you do?" Ryuu demanded.

"Just what you wanted," said Sol. "We cut your boyfriend free of the stone. We didn't need his influence polluting it anyway."

"And you didn't want him to die just because we needed a bit of, hmm... building material," Luna concluded, "so now we'll all be happy, won't we?"

"I don't know about that," En muttered, still clutching his wounded shoulder. "I'm pretty pissed off."

"You should mind your own business," said Sol.

"It doesn't matter," said Luna soothingly, though whether he was trying to soothe his brother or En was a question. "We'll be done with this soon enough." He flashed a smile around the room. "And then you won't have to worry about us ever again. That will make you happy, won't it, to see the last of us?"

"What are you two planning?" Akoya demanded.

"Nothing that concerns you," said Sol loftily. "Don't worry. Probably you'll hardly notice anything after we're done."

"But what..." Akoya persisted, but there was a rush of air, baking and freezing at once, and then the twins were gone.

"Dammit, they got away!" Ryuu complained. " _And_ they took the stone! Damn, damn, and double damn!"

"They said they cut Io free of it," Akoya murmured. "They might have been telling the truth."

"Do you really think those two would tell the truth?" Ryuu answered sourly.

"They might," said En. He stood up carefully. The wound in his arm was no longer bleeding, but he still looked uncomfortable. It would probably be a while before it stopped hurting. "They sure did something with that axe, anyway. I'll check along the dream roads and make sure Io isn't lost there. You two head back to the underworld and see if he's awake yet."

With that, he vanished in a swirl of blue light. Ryuu looked annoyed by this abrupt departure, but he glanced at Akoya and muttered, "See you there," before disappearing himself. Akoya found himself alone in the temple that was rapidly becoming something that was not a temple. With the stone gone, its influence was melting away, without leaving so much as a puddle behind. The ceiling was already vanished, and the walls were now only about six feet high and diminishing rapidly. The floor had given way to rocks and grass, and the ornate altar was now nothing more than a stone with a notch hacked out of it. The sky overhead was spangled with stars. It was very dark now, too dark for human eyes to make out much, but Akoya could plainly see the figure of Shin Nito crouched on his hands and knees, sobbing silently and beating the ground with his fist.

"It's... not... fair!" he choked out. "I try and try, and nothing ever works..."

Akoya regarded him silently for a moment. As much as his heart wanted to be near Io right now, the pull of his own nature was too strong. This human was one of his followers; Akoya had a duty to him. He knelt and placed a hand on the artist's shoulder.

"Don't give up hope," he said. "I've given you the ability to create beauty. All you need is to find the right place for it. Pray to Argent. He can help you find your way."

Shin sniffled. "You think so?"

"I know so," said Akoya. "And if my consort truly has been saved, then I promise I will speak to Argent personally on your behalf."

Shin looked downcast. "I really hurt him, then?"

"You could have."

"I'm sorry," said Shin. "They didn't tell me it would hurt anyone. I thought it was just... you know, a magic rock."

"These two are not in the habit of telling people things," said Akoya dryly. "For example, they didn't tell you that your mortal body wouldn't have borne the strain of using that power for very much longer. If they hadn't come and taken that stone away from you when you did, you probably would have died in a most unbeautiful fashion."

Shin went very white. "You're not serious."

"I'm very serious," said Akoya. "It's a basic rule about becoming a god. All of us - Argent, Epinard, and myself - had to give up our mortal bodies before we could become divine. You'd have lost yours too if you had kept playing at being a god."

"Oh," said Shin, his voice very small. "I really messed up, didn't I?"

"You did," Akoya agreed. "But you will do better in the future, won't you?"

Shin nodded eagerly. "I will! I'll make an offering to Argent first thing. And to you, and Vesta and Sulfur and Cerulean. And anyone else I can think of."

"That would be very wise," Akoya agreed seriously.

Then, feeling that he'd done his duty, he vanished back to the underworld.

He found Ryuu, En, Gora, Yumoto, and Hara clustered around Io's motionless body.

"What's going on?" asked Akoya, voice taut. "Is he...?"

"He's back in his body," said En. "Hara and I are waking him up now - a little at a time, so we can put him back under quickly if he turns out he's still in pain."

"So far, though, he seems fine," Hara added reassuringly.

"I'm giving him every chance I can," said Yumoto, watching intensely.

Akoya nodded and settled in to wait.

A few seconds passed. Slowly, Io's chest rose and fell in a long breath. His eyelids flickered slightly. His fingers curled and uncurled. Then, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

"That was very strange," he murmured.

"Are you all right?" Akoya asked.

"I think so." Io carefully sat up and patted himself, as though he thought he might be missing pieces. "Everything seems to be in order."

Ryuu laughed with relief. "You sure gave us a scare. You've gotta stop doing that. You're not the one who's supposed to get yourself into jams like this."

"I didn't do it on purpose," said Io, slightly offended.

"We're just glad you're all right," said Akoya. "You are getting _so many_ shiny things from me, as soon as I have time to collect some offerings."

"Well, that's something to look forward to," said Io, smiling. He carefully levered himself to his feet. "But it's really not necessary. I feel fine."

Ryuu slung an arm around him. "Hey, let us spoil you a bit. You owe us that much, after the scare we've had."

Io smiled. "All right, maybe a little."

Hara dusted his hands off. "Well, I see my services are no longer needed here. I'll show myself out." He vanished, leaving behind a sharp scent of soap.

"I think we're done here as well," said Gora. "I'm glad you're feeling better now, Io."

He and Yumoto left, but En seemed inclined to linger, possibly because he was still injured and felt even less like unnecessary movement than usual.

"Honestly," he said, "that whole thing could have gone better."

"Yeah," Ryuu agreed with a grimace. "They got the stone, they got the axe, and they put a hole in you and nearly got Io killed."

"Not to mention what almost happened to that artist fellow," Akoya put in.

"I wonder what they want with that stuff anyway," said Ryuu. "They talk like they have a really specific plan in mind."

En ran a hand through his hair. "Well, I don't know about the stone, but I can make a half a guess about the axe."

Io gave him a look. "How do you make _half_ a guess?"

"Well, I mean, I don't know _exactly_ what they're gonna do with it," said En, "but I have a sort of a feeling it has something to do with Gora."

Everyone stared at him.

"Where did you get that from?" Akoya asked.

"Well, they're in love with him," said En, as if that were self-evident.

"They are?" Ryuu repeated. Then, "Well, what do you know, they are! How did I miss that? Probably because I wasn't looking for it... Man. Raito owes me a favor, now. He bet me no one would ever have the nerve to get involved with Fate."

"Wait, how do you even know this?" Akoya asked. "It isn't exactly your specialty."

"No," said En, "but I delivered dreams to them, same as anyone else, and if you do that often enough, you get a pretty good idea of their range of interests."

"Great," Ryuu muttered. "So it turns out this whole thing is because their crush isn't into them? Sheesh. Why can't they just go out and get drunk like normal people?"

"Possibly because they've been trapped in a seal for the last few centuries," said Io dryly. "I don't know what it's like inside a seal, but I am assuming that any one Aurite created wouldn't have any bars inside."

"Do you suppose we had better ask Gora about this?" asked Akoya uncertainly. He wasn't altogether comfortable around Gora. Akoya liked being a god, and he was always a little afraid that if he made too bad an impression, he might have his divinity privileges taken away.

"No," said Ryuu. "I don't think that's such a good idea. It would just make things more complicated, and even I'm not brave enough to go around meddling in Fate's love life. If he wants to get laid he can figure out how to do it on his own."

Akoya thought about that. He supposed that Ryuu was probably right - as kindhearted as Gora seemed to be, giving him a piece of information like that was liable to affect his judgment. He might well do something foolish just to try to soothe the twins' hurt feelings. Akoya knew all too well from watching his husband work that love offered out of pity or a sense of obligation was a perilous thing. It might be better just to let things work themselves out on their own.

"I expect they'll be making their next move soon," he said thoughtfully. "An axe, a stone, and Fate. I wonder what they have to do with each other."

"They way they talked," said Ryuu, "they seemed to think we wouldn't mind whatever it is. They said we wouldn't even notice."

"Somehow," said En, rubbing his shoulder, "I doubt it."

* * *

Yumoto had been chasing squirrels.

"Had been" was the operative phrase. He was still up in the branches of a tall oak tree, gazing thoughtfully up at the sky through the leaves. The squirrels were still going about their squirrel business all around him, as were the birds. Yumoto had actually been successful at catching a few of the squirrels earlier - it was very hard to avoid a probability manipulator when he'd made up his mind to cuddle you. Now, though, he was just sitting and thinking, which wasn't something he did very often.

If they had cared to, Yumoto and Gora could have micro-managed the universe down to its lowest level, setting every detail in stone with no margin for error or adjustment, and then sat back and watched it all play out like a meticulously rehearsed stage production. Neither of them had wanted that. Mostly, they chose to let the universe do its own thing without a lot of interference from them. They spent most of their free time pretending to be human, running a bath house, and trying to stay out of the way. Yumoto liked things that way, and he felt his brother did too. The thing about letting the universe have its own way was that it could surprise them, often by being better than either of them would ever have imagined on their own.

None of that changed the fact that Yumoto was a god, and he had his duty just like anyone else. Even now, he was feeling his way through a myriad of possibilities, watching them branch out in front of him in tangles even more complex than the interweaving of the branches on the tree he was sitting in. The trouble with being a probability manipulator was that he could only choose avenues that had some probability of occurring. He couldn't arrange for the King of Tinzania's wife to poison him if the King of Tinzania wasn't married. Technically, there was a level on which _everything_ was possible, but the further from likely an event was, the more Yumoto had to sweat to make it happen, and the more likely there was for there to be unpleasant backlash if he tried to force the matter. Some events had so much momentum behind them that they couldn't be stopped, not even by him. If he tried, all that pent-up energy would still have to go somewhere, and he would be the first thing it ploughed over.

 _And if anything happens to me, Brother will be the one who suffers most. I have to protect him._

Something bad was going to happen. Yumoto could feel it building up around him, the way lightning built in a cloud or an earthquake built in the ground. He had been trying for the last couple of hours to find a route for it that wouldn't end in disaster, and so far he was having no luck. It was enough to make him want to pull his hair in frustration. There had to be something. There was _always_ something. If he could just find the right narrative thread - something as strong as the one he was fighting, but coming from a better direction, something that could take all this energy and divert it onto a more hopeful path. This was a very old story he was fighting. Maybe if he looked for something further back in the past...

From where he sat, he could just make out the roof of the Kurotama. It had been his home since the time humanity had started living in houses, and he had never loved any place more. He was looking at the back yard, where even now his brother was contentedly (or maybe not so contentedly - he knew something was coming, too) chopping wood for the kitchen fire. There was a little patch of vegetable garden near one corner, too. Just that morning, Yumoto had been out there pulling weeds and considering how the cucumbers were coming along...

A garden. Yes - there was a thread to this narrative that had begun in a garden, a thread clean and strong enough to drag the weight of this story around to a happy ending. If he could just follow it through long enough to _find_ that potential ending...

Somewhere in the midst of his musings, a small, nonsensical thought wandered through his head. The thought was, _That leaf is really a squirrel._ The thought was strange enough to disrupt Yumoto's cogitations, and he sat up and blinked. Sure enough, there was a squirrel sitting in the tree a few feet above him. He could tell it was a squirrel because it was small and furry and had a fluffy tail, but it was still clear how he'd managed to mistake it for a leaf. It was green.

"Hey," said Yumoto, mildly offended. "What are you doing here? Demons aren't supposed to be here!"

"Muph," said the squirrel, which was probably all it could say, because there was a folded sheet of paper in its mouth.

"Is that for me?" Yumoto asked. His previous train of thought had been completely derailed by this intriguing new development. He hoped that he'd pulled the thread he'd been following far enough around, because if he hadn't, there was no use in trying to fix it now. Despite the number of people who prayed things like, "Please don't let my son have been drowned at sea," even the gods usually couldn't undo something once it had already happened, and now things were starting to happen.

The squirrel looked indecisive for a moment, then crept closer. Yumoto held very still as the little imp scampered down the side of the tree, across the branch, and finally came to perch on his knee. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Yumoto couldn't stop himself from wanting to fluff its fur. Instead, he reached out and took the note.

"Actually, that's for your brother," said the squirrel deferentially, "but, ah, well... he's really big. And he's got an axe. And he might not take kindly to seeing an unexpected demon in his yard, and it's very hard to explain myself with a paper in my mouth."

"So you want me to deliver this?" Yumoto guessed.

"If you'd be so kind."

"Um... sure, I guess," said Yumoto. This was new. Demons didn't usually ask him for anything, much less to run errands for them. In a world where he was the living embodiment of "unexpected things happening", he appreciated the novelty.

"Thank you very much," said the imp graciously. "Well, I suppose I'll be seeing you."

With a startlingly swift movement, he turned and scuttled up the side of the tree.

"Hey, wait!" Yumoto called, but it was already too late.

"Nuts," he muttered.

He contemplated the message. The squirrel had said that this was for Gora, but it wasn't as though the two brothers were in the habit of keeping secrets from each other. Anything Gora knew, Yumoto would find out about sooner or later. He opened the letter.

 _Gora,_ it read, _If you want to know what we're planning, meet us at Tableturn Rock as soon as possible. We'll be waiting for you there._ It was signed with the names Akihiko and Haruhiko, with a sun and moon sketched next to them to make the message perfectly clear. Yumoto stared thoughtfully at it for a few seconds.

Then he jumped down out of the tree without bothering with any niceties like climbing. He hit the ground running.

"Brother!" he called. "It's starting!"


	13. The Purpose

Near the center of the continent, just west of the Jade Mountains, was a desert. Not an uninhabited desert - any number of tribes wandered its sands or built settlements around its oases. The fabled city of Candlehearth, with its gleaming copper roofs, stood near its heart, and the great trade city of Goldenport rested at its southernmost edge, where it abutted the ocean. Most of it, though, was simply desert, endlessly full of sand and rock. One of these rocks was Tableturn, a flat red mesa rising up out of the dunes. This one was notable because it was crowned with several more or less cylindrical spires of rock, which stood around its perimeter like the points on a crown. At some point in time, some waggish individual had observed that it looked like a great stone table that an irritated giant had flipped onto its back, leaving its legs pointing helplessly skyward, and the image had stuck. Ever since then, to the human world, at least, it had been known as Tableturn.

It had a good reputation. Travelers in the desert chose to make their camps there. Demons and bandits avoided it, storms passed around rather than over it, and frayed tempers were soothed in the coolness of its shadows. It was also tacitly understood that if you happened to meet a mysterious stranger sitting there on a rock by himself, you were _very polite_ to him. Younger travelers believed that this was because of the law of the desert - that none of them would survive out there unless they took care of each other, whether they were friends or strangers. Older, wiser travelers knew that this was so, but that it was also true that sometimes even the gods got homesick.

Under other circumstances, Arima would have felt like a tourist.

He stood now at the edge of the mesa. It was bigger than he'd imagined it would be, and not as hot as he'd expected from a desert. A cool breeze blew over the place, defying all meteorological rules. The pillars loomed all around him, not nearly as tall as the Seven Pillars that had ringed his beloved city, but somehow just as imposing. He could sense the age on them, reminding him how terribly young and untried he was compared to so many of his friends.

There hadn't always been a Palace of the Gods. There hadn't always been a Heavenly City. In the very beginning, when the Old Ones still roamed the earth in great numbers and humanity was still figuring out what it wanted to do with itself for the rest of history, the gods had dwelled more or less among them. They had made their home here, on this distant and inaccessible rock, when there had only been a handful of them and a single geographical feature had been large enough to hold them all. When Chaos had stopped its endless churning and chosen to become a man so that he could be a proper brother to the little god he'd created, this was where he had been standing.

He was standing there now, looking grim and worried. Yumoto pressed close to him, clinging to his arm, although who was trying to comfort whom was anyone's guess. Also, there were the others. Fate and Chance might technically have been the most powerful entities in the universe, but that didn't mean they could afford to get reckless. Anyone sending them a note inviting them to meet privately for some vague purpose was obviously up to nothing good, and it would have been foolish to go into such a situation without backup. Kinshiro was there, of course, and Atsushi and Arima had insisted on coming with him. So had En, Io, Ryuu, and Akoya, who wanted a bit of their own back over the underworld stone fiasco. Even Wombat was there, and Gora's bird friend Hashibiro. Arima wasn't exactly certain what use a friendly marsupial would be in this particular situation, but he assumed any help was better than none.

And there were others there. Aki and Haru stood at the center of the mesa. One held Fate's axe cradled in his hands, where it shone like a sunbeam. The other cupped the underworld stone in his palms, where it glowed like the moon. A little green squirrel perched on Aki's shoulder.

"Well," said Aki, surveying the assembled company, "it would seem we have an audience."

"It's rude to show up to an event you weren't invited to," Haru grumbled.

"I suppose it's all right, just this once," said Aki. "After all, they'll want to know what happened."

"What _is_ happening?" asked Kinshiro. "What are you two up to?"

"We're not speaking to you," said Haru sulkily. "You _shot_ me."

"I was justified."

"You always think you're justified," Aki retorted. "You should think about how other people feel, for a change."

Gora said quietly, "Please, tell us what you're trying to do here."

Two sets of eyes turned towards them. The longing written across the twins' faces was difficult to bear looking at. Arima could feel the sickening pull of it, the sense of something that had once been good and true but had been warped almost to the breaking point...

And it went both ways, Arima realized. Even after everything that had happened, Gora still cared about them. He was sorry that they had strayed from the straight and narrow. He still held out hope that someday they would turn back from the path they'd chosen.

The moment where Gora's eyes met theirs stretched on and on. Arima saw the twins falter slightly, and he thought just for a few seconds that they were about to burst into tears and fling themselves into his arms. He wished they would. He had a feeling that would be better than anything else they might decide to do.

What he didn't expect was for Aki to ask, very softly, "Aren't you lonely, Gora?"

There was a moment of puzzled silence. No one else had expected that, either.

Almost dreamily, Gora said, "Lonely? Funny you should ask about that..."

"Everyone else here is afraid of you," said Haru. "They pretend they aren't, but they are. They're all afraid that you'll slip back into Chaos and destroy them, so they hide from you. Even your own brother is afraid. He worries all the time about you getting out of control again, you know."

"But we're not afraid," said Aki. "We'll love you no matter what. All we want is to be with you."

"That's all right, then, isn't it?" asked Yumoto. "You can be Brother's friends if you want to. You don't have to do anything else."

"No!" Haru burst out. "You don't understand at all! There is no place in this universe for us! We've _tried_. We worked so hard to be good enough, and we never were! The harder we tried to prove ourselves, the more you pushed us down!"

"That wasn't about you proving yourselves," Kinshiro snapped. "That was about you trying to overthrow the pantheon and get rid of all of us!"

"And whose fault was that?" Aki shouted back. "When we stayed out of the way like you told us to, you all looked down on us. You said we were purposeless and pointless, and that we never should have existed! When we tried to accomplish something, you said we were trying to get above ourselves and we needed to be destroyed! Nothing we did was ever good enough for you all!"

"You wanted us not to exist," Haru snarled, "and then punished us for having the nerve to do it anyway. But no more."

"That's right," said Aki, a wild light in his eyes. "Today, everything changes! We're all going to get what we want this time. You'll never have to be afraid of us _or_ Gora ever again, because we're taking him and we're leaving."

"You can't do that," said Atsushi. "I mean, where would you even go?"

"To a new universe," said Haru proudly, holding up the underworld stone. "With this as a focus for our powers, we can create a new world."

"And with this," said Aki, holding up the axe, "we can cut ourselves and Gora free from our ties with this universe."

"You can't take my brother away!" Yumoto protested.

"We can and we will," said Haru.

"Don't worry," said Aki. "If we make the cut just right, you won't even remember he was ever here, so you won't miss him."

Gora shook his head. "Please, don't do this. This is wrong."

"But you want us to," said Aki. His voice was strangely gentle. "You can't fool us. Doesn't it hurt you, knowing that no matter how much you do for these people, no matter how kind you are, they'll never really stop being afraid of you? Wouldn't you like to finally be with people who'll accept you as you are?"

"Not like this," said Gora, but Arima could see they had hit a weak spot. How hard must it be, Arima thought, to live so many thousands of years in a world where no one could ever really feel like they could trust you? Even though Gora surely didn't want to leave his brother and his friends and the universe he loved, the idea of another life where people loved and accepted him unconditionally must have been just the tiniest bit tempting.

The twins could see it too.

"You see," said Haru, "you do want it, and so do we." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Resolutely, he repeated. "This is what we want."

"It is," said Aki firmly, "and now we're going to make it happen."

He raised the axe. There was a surge of forward motion as every member of their audience moved towards them at once, along with a ragged chorus of, "No, stop! Don't!"

Then the axe came down. It tore through the air with a rending sound, as though someone had just ripped the world's largest sheet of cloth in half. With the tear came a sudden wind, hot in the desert air. In the place where the axe had passed, there was now a dark hole in the world, and dangling and flapping around its edges were clusters of silvery strings. Arima had seen those only once before, when Gora had rewoven a young man's fate. They were the strings of possibility that held the universe together, and now they were coming undone. As the crowd watched in horror, the rent began to widen, growing longer and wider in the space of a few seconds as the threads unraveled. The wider it grew, the stronger the wind became, and Arima realized in sudden fear that this wasn't wind. It was suction, and it was pulling him towards the hole.

"What... what's going on?" Haru stammered.

"You really shouldn't have done that!" Yumoto wailed.

"We didn't mean..." Aki said. He stared at the steadily widening gap in terror.

"Don't just stand there!" Gora bellowed.

He rushed forwards and shoved the twins hard. They stumbled sideways, out of the direct path of the gap's suction. With both hands, he seized on some of the waving silver strings and began hauling on them as hard as he could. The expansion of the hole began to slow... but it was only slowed. It had too much momentum now, and even his great strength wasn't enough to stop it.

"Help me!" he shouted.

Everyone moved. Gods, beasts, all the assembled witnesses moved as one body to grab hold of handfuls of strings and pull with all their might. It felt to Arima as though he had handfuls of thin strong wire. They cut into his fingers, burning lines of fire across his palms, but still he hung on. Next to him, he could vaguely see all his friends pulling as hard as they could, faces twisted with exertion, sweat beading on brows. Wombat perched on Yumoto's shoulders, helping him haul a clump of the strings, and Hashibiro had them clamped in his powerful beak as he backpedaled with claws and wings. Ryuu positively glowed from the exertion, a fiery nimbus surrounding him, and Akoya's normally serene face was a warped mask of pain.

Only Aki and Haru stood apart. They lay crumpled on the ground where they had fallen, watching the struggle with expressions of fear and confusion. This was not what they had expected to happen, and now that it was happening, they had no idea what to do. Arima's deepest nature begged to be allowed to tell them, but there wasn't time now. He turned his attention back to the task at hand. Despite the combined efforts of the gods, the hole was continuing to widen at an alarming pace. Arima could see straight into the gap now, and inside the hole was...

Darkness. Arima had heard of the darkness. The gods talked about it sometimes, but never very much, and always with a sort of offhanded reverence, as though it were something too awesome to risk thinking about very deeply. He had always taken it as a kind of metaphor. This... was not a metaphor. It was something deeper than blackness, something with depth and texture to it, something full of tiny spinning specks and sparks. It took him a moment to realize those sparks weren't bits of dust floating nearby. They were very, very far away, and each one was an entire universe, and there were too many of them to ever count. This was the space between realities, and the world he knew was draining into it the way water drained out of a bucket with a hole in it. He realized, too, that if their world fell into the darkness, it would dissolve like a drop of ink in the ocean - not destroyed but dissipated. It would break apart and re-emerge as part of a million billion other galaxies. He, his friends, the Heavenly City, his beloved City of Seven Pillars, everything he had ever known and loved or seen or even heard of - all of it would be broken down and redistributed, and they would never find each other again. The creation of their universe had been a one-in-infinity chance, and once it was destroyed, it would never come together again.

 _On the other hand, we have the god of long-shot gambles right here, don't we?_

Inspiration struck him. Arima looked around at the assembled group again, weighing his odds. Did he dare try it? What other choice did he have?

"I'm going to try something!" he shouted, over the rushing of the wind. "Yumoto, give me your blessing! Kinshiro, hold my lines!"

"You'd better be sure about this!" Kinshiro shouted back, but he was already twisting his own set of lines around his wrist. It must have hurt him, but he still moved with swift efficiency as he used his now-free hands to produce his bow and arrows. He tied the lines around one of these bolts and shot it deeply into the ground before reaching for Arima's own bundle of strings.

"I'm not sure," said Arima, "but I don't see us getting any better ideas."

"I don't know what you're doing," Yumoto shouted to him, "but I know you can do it!"

And that was as good a blessing as he was going to get. Hunched against the powerful draft, Arima managed to stumble out of the gap's suction and force his way to where the twins were still crouching.

"Get up," he ordered them. "We need your help."

"What can we do?" Aki asked miserably.

"Just because we broke it doesn't mean we know how to fix it!" Haru wailed.

"You can and you will," Arima told them. He felt very sure now. His mind was clear. Despite the howling of the wind and the sounds of pain coming from his friends, he had a sense that everything was finally going the way it should be. He was doing his job at last and it felt good.

"We can't," said Aki. "We're not proper gods. We never have been. We don't have any true power. We're gods of nothing at all."

"That's where you're wrong," said Arima. "Listen to me. I am the god of duty, and I know that everything in this universe - every grain of sand, every drop of rain, every blade of grass - has a purpose. How can you truly believe that anyone as powerful and versatile as you two can't be good for anything?"

"It's what they always told us," said Haru.

"Then you shouldn't have believed them," said Arima. "But now, believe me. You _aren't_ gods of nothing at all, and _I know what you are._ "

Hunger flared in their expressions. They wanted to know. Even more than they wanted to be with their beloved Gora, they wanted to know why they existed.

And Arima realized he _did_ know. It was so obvious, so blindingly clear, that he could hardly believe no one had noticed it before. The way they were so different and yet so perfectly alike, the way their movements synchronized in a kind of unchoreographed dance, the way they were made up of so many conflicting pieces and somehow managed to be flawless and whole... he should have known it from the moment they'd first been described to him.

"You can't know," said Haru stubbornly, though hope still smouldered in his eyes. "No one has ever known, not for thousands of years."

"I do know," said Arima firmly. "Haruhiko, Akihiko, you are the living embodiment of opposing elements brought into perfect harmony. You are the gods of unity and balance, and _only you can mend this world._ "

Even over the wind and the chaos, he heard their intake of breath. Slowly, their sullen, fearful expressions cleared into a kind of ecstasy.

"Yes," said Aki softly.

"Oh," said Haru in wonder. "Of course..."

Arima reached out his hands to them. "Come on. Now is your time."

They took his hands, and he felt their auras - one hot, one cold - burning against his skin. A gentle glow was building around them. Power that had been locked away, denied its true purpose for centuries, was waking up at last, and the two of them were shining with it. Moving in perfect unison, as if they were the greatest dancers in the world and this their masterpiece performance, they stepped towards the rent. Each reached out to take the other's hand, and then, with their free hands, they took a grip on the nearest handful of wires. They pulled.

Arima felt the shift in the world. One moment, everything was falling apart. The next instant, the wind began to die town. A tremor in the earth that he'd hardly been aware of feeling faded away. The twins moved slowly down the line, taking hold of torn edges and drawing them together as easily as closing the lid of a box. Where they passed, they left peace and wholeness, and a row of exhausted gods who had been unequal to the task that they performed so easily. Within minutes, the gap was down to a tiny hole only a few inches wide. Aki reached up to press the top of the hole, and Haru pushed up from the bottom, and the darkness vanished with the tiniest _pop!_ Arima dropped to his knees, suddenly overcome by relief.

 _I didn't actually know that would work._

"Is it over?" asked Ryuu's voice in the ensuing silence. "Are we alive?"

"We seem to be," said Akoya. He began trying to put his disheveled hair back in order.

The twins were standing and staring at each other. The nimbus of power around them had faded, leaving them looking pale and shaken.

"Did we just do that?" asked Haru.

"I think we did," said Aki. His voice was unsteady. "We used our powers... our _real_ powers."

Kinshiro, still lying in an exhausted heap on the ground, glared up at them.

"You near as anything tore the universe in half with your foolish tricks," he snapped.

The two of them cringed.

"Now, Kinshiro," said Gora. "Why don't you let me handle this?"

Kinshiro scowled. "It's my job."

"Make an exception," Gora suggested.

Kinshiro subsided, muttering.

Hashibiro ambled over to his friend and crouched to help Gora to his feet. Gora thanked him kindly before walking - still a little unsteadily - over to stand before the twins. The two of them made little squeaking noises and clung to each other.

"We're sorry," Haru mumbled to his feet.

"We didn't know it was going to be like that," Aki added.

"But you knew it was wrong," said Gora, his tone still soft.

The twins scuffed their feet against the stony ground.

"I guess we did," Haru mumbled.

"And you chose to do it anyway," said Gora.

Aki looked pleadingly up at him. "We didn't know what else to do. We've been trying for so long..."

"I know," said Gora. "And I'm sorry I couldn't be more help to you. My only excuse is that I was young back then, too, and I didn't know as much as I do now. This isn't the way you should have come into your power... but I'm glad you've finally found it. For that, at least, I'm proud of you." His face broke into a smile, and he spread his arms wide. "Now come here. I've missed you."

The two of them gasped in unison. Then they flung themselves into his arms and began to sob. Gora closed them into an embrace, gently stroking their hair.

"Shh, shh. It's all right now. No harm done," he told them.

"Can you ever forgive us?" Aki asked.

"I can," said Gora. His expression turned grave. "But you understand, don't you, that I can't just let you make this kind of mischief and go unpunished, right?"

Haru gave a dismayed little squeak. Aki gulped hard and said, "We know." In the background, Kinshiro nodded as if to say that _this_ was more like it.

"I'm not going to destroy you," said Gora. "I understand that you didn't really mean any harm. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do _something_ , but I'm going to give you the chance to help me decide what that's going to be." He stepped back to look at them both seriously. "Now, I _could_ seal you back up again. I'd seal you both together this time, so you wouldn't be alone, and I'd make sure the place you were sealed was as comfortable as possible, but you wouldn't be getting out again like you did this time."

"No! Not that!" they both blurted. They clung to each other in dismay. "Anything but that."

"I thought as much," said Gora. "All right, then. Here is your other choice: renounce your divine privileges and come to stay at the Kurotama. You can act as attendants to Yumoto and me, at least until you've proven you've learned your lesson. It won't be any kind of picnic," he warned, as he saw their eyes widen. "Yumoto and I live as humans most of the time, and that means you would too. You'd wait on customers, scrub floors, wash dishes, and pull weeds like the humblest kind of menial servant. And you'll be watched all the time, until Kinshiro, Yumoto and I all agree that you've earned the right to be trusted. So, do you think you can live with that?"

"We can stay with you?" asked Aki.

"Forever?" Haru added hopefully.

Gora laughed. "Well, I guess that's settled, then. Yes, you can stay as long as you want. But you have to promise to behave yourselves, all right?"

"We'll be good!" Aki promised.

Haru looked thoughtful about something.

"Can we keep our squirrel?" he asked, waving towards Dadacha. "I know he's a demon, but he's been a good one, as far as demons go."

"I don't know," said Gora. He glanced at Yumoto. "What do you think?"

Yumoto ambled over to have a look at the demon in question who was still lying where he'd fallen when Gora had shoved the twins away from danger. Dadacha pressed himself fearfully against the ground as Yumoto loomed over him.

"Do you like being cuddled?" Yumoto asked.

"Actually, yes," said Dadacha.

Yumoto's face split in a wide grin. "Okay! He can stay."

Arima thought he heard Wombat mutter, "Oh, thank goodness," but he couldn't be sure.

"This isn't punishment!" Kinshiro complained.

"No," said Atsushi, coming over to put an arm around him, "it's mercy."

"And it's making everyone happy," Ryuu put in. "Don't knock it."

"They aren't supposed to get what they want," Kinshiro muttered, but it was clear he was only complaining for form's sake. Arima sauntered over to join him.

"They're getting what they need," he said. "Not just Aki and Haru, but all of them. It's all for the best."

"I suppose you're right," Kinshiro said reluctantly.

"He is right," said Atsushi. He turned to beam at Arima. "But hey, you were great out there. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't worked that out."

"Just doing my job," said Arima modestly. "I'm just glad my particular skills didn't fail me."

Kinshiro gave Arima one of his rare smiles. "I don't mind telling you, I have never been more proud of you. You never cease to amaze me, Arima."

Arima beamed. Atsushi laughed and hugged him, and after a moment or two, Kinshiro joined in. Arima closed his eyes in perfect contentment and put his arms around both of them.

 _Maybe it's no wonder I knew how to help them,_ he thought. He understood them perfectly. He knew exactly what it was to love someone so much that for them, he'd be willing to change the universe.

* * *

Cautious optimism was not a normal characteristic of Ouso's mental makeup. He normally lived his life seesawing between a state of blissful overconfidence and crippling self-doubt. Nevertheless, he was feeling cautiously optimistic as he made his way down the path to Lightflower.

After all the gods had gone away, he and Katari had gone to sleep - well, some other things had happened, but they'd gone to sleep eventually - and when they had awakened, the temple was gone. Or rather, it wasn't exactly _gone_ , but all the little improvements that the twin gods had worked on it to make it liveable had vanished overnight, and he and Katari had found themselves sleeping on a cold stone floor instead of a comfortable bed. There had been no breakfast in the kitchen because there was no kitchen. Luna and Sol might never have been there at all.

So now they were leaving. While the gods' gifts may have vanished, the offerings the good people of Lighflower had left were still there, including a little bit of money. Ouso and Katari had decided together that the best thing to do now would be to leave Lightflower behind - there were too many people there who knew Ouso's face and who would want explanations - and instead make the journey to the next town. Katari seemed to think he knew people, or at least, knew _of_ people, who might be willing to give them work. If that didn't work, he said, they would play at being bards and tell stories and recite poetry in pubs to earn their breakfast. One way or another, he said, they would be all right. It wouldn't be _easy_ , but they would be all right.

At the moment, Ouso wasn't worried too much about easy. Maybe he had no money, no place to live, and an empty belly. The important thing was that the sun was shining and he was walking hand-in-hand with someone who thought he was the most wonderful thing since the invention of sonnets.

On reconsideration, the gods in the road were probably important, too.

Ouso stopped short. At the same instant, Katari gave a little yelp and tried to cower behind him. Ouso cast a look around, wondering if there was a place _he_ could hide.

"Ah, um, ah..." he stammered.

There were two of them. One of them was... well, Ouso wasn't quite sure. He'd never seen this one depicted in any temple he'd ever been in, but he was most certainly a god. He was tall and strong-looking, handsome in a rough-hewn sort of way. His hair was the color of molten metal, and the air around him shimmered as if from rising heat. He carried something golden slung over his shoulder. It glittered as though it had just been given a fresh polish, shining too brightly in the strong sunlight for Ouso to make out what it was. As for the other...

 _Oh, my._

Ouso had never thought badly of his own appearance. He had always believed, in fact, that he was quite attractive in his own special way. Standing in front of this person, though, he suddenly realized that he was nothing of the sort. He could spend the rest of his life honing every aspect of his appearance and he wouldn't even come close to touching the loveliness of this person. His eyes could never be so huge and luminous, his hair would never be so soft and flowing, his skin would never have achieved that creamy smoothness, and as for that body... well, it was enough to make him wonder what Katari had ever seen in him.

"My lord," he blurted, and flung himself face-down on the ground.

"Oh, now, none of that," said the bigger god, sounding a bit embarrassed. "This is a friendly visit. No reason to get all formal."

"Sorry," Ouso mumbled into the dirt. He pulled himself into a kneeling position, and Katari hauled him up the rest of the way.

"Do you have any idea who that is?" Katari hissed into his ear.

"Um... pretty sure that one with all the jewelry is Pearlite..."

"No, the other one!"

"No idea."

"That's _Fate_."

"Oh," said Ouso in a small voice. All right, he'd almost been getting used to having gods around, but Fate was notoriously secretive. If there was any human alive today who had seen the greatest of the gods face to face, Ouso didn't know about them. He was not sure what it boded that he was here now.

Pearlite smiled. It seemed to make the sun shine a little brighter.

"Don't look so nervous," he said. "We're not here on your account. We're here to talk to him."

"Oh," said Ouso. He was surprised to realize he was disappointed. What - he wasn't interesting to the gods anymore?

Katari did not seem disappointed by this news. What he seemed was terrified.

"I... I'm not sure I understand..." he stammered.

"Don't pick on him," Ouso blurted. It pained him to hear his normally articulate lover stuttering and stumbling that way.

"Don't worry," said Fate kindly. "He's not in trouble. He and I just have a few things to talk over." He addressed Katari. "Perhaps you'd like to speak to me in private?"

"Of... of course," Katari managed.

The two of them walked deeper into the woods, until they were too distant for their voices to be heard as more than a murmur. Ouso found himself alone on a path with the most beautiful being in the universe.

"I can see now why you didn't want me at your temple," Ouso mumbled.

"Who said I didn't?" Pearlite answered.

Ouso looked up, surprised. "Those boys..."

"Were mere initiates," Pearlite cut in. "They did not speak on my behalf. They merely spoke out of ignorance. You can bet their master had a few words to say to them when he found out."

"But... but I'm not nearly beautiful enough to serve you..."

A soft hand touched his chin, and Ouso found himself gently but irresistibly forced to look into Pearlite's fathomless blue eyes. They were extraordinary eyes, full of sparkling highlights and violet undertones. They were also, Ouso realized, remarkably shrewd. Pearlite was so famous for his beauty that it was easy to forget he was also intelligent.

"Hmm," said Pearlite now, scrutinizing Ouso closely. "Let me see... rosy complexion, sleek hair, lovely eyes, long lashes, overall nicely balanced proportions... yes, I'd say you are truly beautiful." He released his hold on Ouso's chin. "All you really need is to put a curb on that runaway imagination of yours, and I'm not the one to help you there. If I ever turn you away from my temple, it's because you're destined to do something with your life besides sit about being ornamental. Not," he added, "that there's anything wrong with being ornamental."

Ouso could feel himself blushing down to his toes.

 _Pearlite just said I was beautiful. Pearlite! No one is ever going to believe this..._

He was still basking in this extraordinary fact when Fate and Katari returned. Fate was clapping the poet-god on the shoulder, and Katari was wearing the expression of one who had been expecting a dressing-down and was relieved to find it hadn't been as bad as he'd thought it would be. He approached Pearlite and made a sweeping bow.

"My lord," he said, very formally, "I confess that I've wronged you, and I'd like to apologize. My behavior was entirely inexcusable, and I can only hope that one so gracious and understanding as yourself, possessing such a fine and noble spirit, can find it in his heart to forgive my error in judgement, which I regret so profoundly."

Pearlite looked highly gratified by this flowery pronouncement. "Well, I suppose if you really are sorry..."

"I am," said Katari, in a more normal tone. "I think I understand, now, what you meant before. I used to think poetry was all about beautiful words, and putting them together in flashy ways. But there's so much more to it, and I didn't understand it until I found something that really deserved to have poetry written about it." He flashed a quick, shy smile at Ouso. "And I never should have scorned you for being human. There's a lot to be learned from this kind of life."

Pearlite inclined his head graciously. "Very well, then. I accept your apology."

"In that case, I think everything is settled," said Fate. He turned to Katari. "So, what do you say? Are you ready to go home?"

Ouso felt his spirits sink. He should have known it was too good to last. Of course, Katari wouldn't want to stay human forever. He had important work to do. He would want to go back to the Heavenly City, where there was beauty and feasting and celebrations and luxury. He surely wouldn't want to recite poetry for pennies down here on earth...

"I don't know," said Katari, going very red in the face. "I mean... it's been a learning experience, and I, ah... I've gotten kind of attached to... well, you know."

Pearlite laughed. "Oh, yes, I know. My dear husband told me all about it."

Katari went even redder, and Ouso was sure he was blushing just as much. Really, people needed to stay out of other people's private lives.

"You know," said Fate gently, "you can't just avoid your duty for the fun of it. The world still needs you."

"I know," said Katari wretchedly.

"Oh, don't look so gloomy," said Akoya. "Nothing in the rules says a god can't court a mortal."

Katari perked up a bit. "Really?"

"Of course," said Akoya. "Vesta did it all the time, I understand, before he had the good sense to get married and settle down. It won't be ideal situation, but you won't have to put up with it forever. You waited this long to find love - you can wait another sixty years or so to make him your attendant, if that's what you want, and then you can do whatever you like together."

"Oh," said Katari. He seemed to think it over. Then he turned to Ouso. "Would that be all right with you? I wish I could stay, but I'll come back and see you again as often as I can..."

"You promise?" Ouso asked hopefully.

"Absolutely," said Katari fervently. He smiled. "I need you to inspire me."

Ouso thought about it. A story of star-crossed lovers, the god who descended from the heavens every night, giving up the pleasures of immortality to return to the arms of his lover... yes, it would make a good story. Maybe even one with a happy ending.

"As long as you promise to come back," he said. "Soon."

"I promise," said Katari solemnly.

"Well, that settles it," said Fate, hefting his golden axe. "Hold still a minute and I'll get you sorted out in no time."

"Wait," said Katari.

Fate stopped. "What is it now?"

"I can't just leave Ouso here alone in the woods," he said. "I at least need to know he's going to be safe before I leave."

"Okay," said Fate with a shrug. "What did you have in mind?"

An hour or so later, the master of the School of Bards was in his study, reading a very thick old book a colleague had sent him, combing it for tales he hadn't read before, and for material that might be turned into new stories. He was surprised to hear a knock on his door.

"Now, who could that be?" he muttered. He tucked a stray sheet of paper into the book to mark his place (and where he would no doubt miss it the next time he tried to find that particular page of his latest epic poem) and went to see who had decided to interrupt his private study.

He opened the door to find two men standing there. One was entirely unfamiliar and rather flustered-looking. The other _was_ familiar, because the master of the school had been making regular offerings to him once a week for most of his adult life.

"Hello," said the god of poetry. "I need you to do me a favor and take on a new student..."

* * *

Shin Nito had come to Lightflower.

He had spent most of the day simply wandering around in a kind of daze, trying to take everything in. He still wasn't quite sure how he had made it here. He had made the promised offering to Argent, and to practically every other god he could think of, just to be on the safe side. It must have worked, because a few days later, a letter had been pushed under his door, explaining that the writer had somehow or other gotten hold of one of Shin's portfolios, and had liked what he'd seen, and that if Shin would like a job in Lightflower then he had only to come to a certain address and ask for one. Almost as soon as Shin had finished reading this missive and shoving everything he owned into a bag, a trader had pulled through town and offered to give Shin a lift. He had spent most of the intervening trip offering thanks and apologies to the gods, who clearly could and did get things done for him when he gave them the proper stimulus.

So now he was here, in the most beautiful city in the world. Just as an experiment, he had tried sketching portions of it, and had been somewhat dismayed to find that his art style had not miraculously improved just because he'd taken it to a new climate.

 _I don't know why I'm here. Probably this job will turn out to be nothing. There must be better artists in this city than me..._

Nevertheless, he'd sent a messenger to his potential patron's address, saying that he was in town and would be happy to drop by and talk whenever they had time for him. A message had come back saying that they were thrilled to hear from him and he should drop in that afternoon for tea and job negotiations. Shin had put on his best clothes (still absurdly drab in this glittering city), picked up his sketch pad and his invitation, in case credentials were needed, and set out as resolutely as he could.

The address on the message led him to a narrow three-storey building, one of several handsome town houses pressed against each other's side in a humble but still quite respectable part of town. This one had a balcony on the second floor. Someone was sitting on it, an easel propped in front of him, and he was painting away industriously. Shin stared. Surely this couldn't be the right place. They obviously already had an artist in residence. What did they need him for?

"Ah, hello?" he called up to the painter.

The painter stopped his painting and turned to look down at Shin. He was long and lanky, Shin could see now, with a mop of dark hair falling past his shoulders.

"Hey," he said. He waved to Shin with the hand that held his brush, and a drop or two of paint dripped down onto the cobbles.

"Sorry to interrupt you," said Shin, "but is this fifteen-twelve Flowerpot Way?"

"Yep," said the painter, and went back to painting.

Clearly this man was not one of the city's great conversationalists. Shin attempted to think of how to phrase the question on his mind in such a way as to get a useful answer to someone who seemed to prefer conversing with one syllable at a time.

He still hadn't come up with a satisfactory answer to that riddle before the front door opened, and an excited little man burst out. He was dark-haired like the painter, but small and darty, with a face that brought to mind a cat convinced of his ability to steal the fish when someone wasn't looking.

" _There_ you are!" he exclaimed. "You are him, aren't you - Shin Nito?"

Shin admitted that this was the case.

"I'm Kou Kinosaki," the little man replied, holding out a hand to shake. "I publish the local newspaper, the _Lightflower Ledger_."

"Newspaper?" Shin answered, baffled.

"A weekly publication," Kou explained, "telling everyone everything interesting that happened this week. Let me tell you, this place is _paradise_ for a publisher like me. The people in this city can't get enough gossip. Give them twenty pages about who went to whose party and talked to who, and they can't give you money fast enough."

"Is that so?" said Shin, confused and a little overwhelmed.

"Exactly," said Kou. "But to really sell, the newspaper needs illustrations, and that's where _you_ come in. I'm telling you, everyone around here will pay good money to look at a picture of Lord So-and-So in the very act of flirting with Lady Whatsit. All I need is somebody to make the pictures. I want to hire you to etch the illustrations for my newspaper."

"But don't you already have an artist?" Shin asked.

"Hm? Oh, him?" asked Kou, following Shin's gaze. "Oh, no, that's my husband. He's doing the job for now, but between you and me, he's earning more selling his paintings, and he likes that better anyway. News pictures aren't what you'd call his metier. You, though..." He gave Shin an approving smile. "You've got the knack. None of this fancy artsy stuff - just good clean lines, exactly as you see them. I'm telling you, you're exactly what I've been needing. So, can you start right away? I'll pay you by the picture, and you can have the empty guest room upstairs if you need a place to stay, no extra charge, but you pay for your own meals. So? Howzabout it?"

Shin turned this over. "So what you're saying is... you really like my art?"

"It's _perfect_ ," Kou assured him.

A slow, hopeful smile crept across Shin's face.

"I'd say you've got yourself an artist." he said.

* * *

"I bid a blue thee," said Atsushi, placing a card on the table.

"Red nine," En offered.

"Yellow two," Ryuu put in.

"Pass," said Io.

Various cards were exchanged, and everyone studied their hands thoughtfully. En very deliberately removed several cards from his hand and spread them face-down on the table.

"Looks like I have a ten-card run," he said smugly.

The others at the table groaned.

"Not again," Ryuu complained.

Io sighed. "Remind me why I play with him?"

Arima, observing from the safety of a table nearby, merely smiled. Life in the Palace of the Gods had gone back to normal, and he was enjoying it immensely. Just now, a sociable little group had gathered in a lesser parlor - the same one, in fact, where Akoya and Katari had exchanged those pointed words that had kicked off the whole adventure. Katari was there now - not surrounded by attendants and sycophants, but alone in a corner. He was deeply involved in writing heaps of sad poetry about the agony of being separated from his lover, and looking happier about it than Arima had ever seen him. Poets, he concluded, were very strange people.

"More tea?" Kinshiro offered.

Arima turned his attention back to his table companion and held up his cup.

"Just a splash," he said.

Kinshiro smiled and tipped the teapot. He was still overflowing with approval for Arima's sterling performance at Tableturn, and Arima was basking in the attention.

 _I certainly have come a long way since that day out in the garden..._

He sipped his tea and let himself enjoy a moment of pure contentment. His friends were with him, people were admiring him, and he had tea. What could possibly be better?

These ruminations were interrupted by the sound of distant yelling. The shouter was shouting the same word over and over, and they were getting closer by the second. The effect produced was something along the lines of, "guys guys _guys, guys_ GUYS, GUYS!"

As the yelling reached a crescendo, Yumoto came tearing down a hallway. He hit the wall, caromed off it with no apparent damage to himself or to it, and came racing towards the parlor, still yelling.

"Guys, guys, guys!" he shouted.

"I believe we have gotten the message," said Kinshiro, glaring. Running and shouting in the halls did not sit well with him.

"Come quick, come quick!" Yumoto exclaimed. He grabbed the nearest person, who happened to be Atsushi, and began trying to drag him to his feet. "You gotta see this!"

"See what?" asked Io. He placed the cards on the table. He'd been losing rather badly, and appeared to be glad of the distraction.

"Come _see!_ " Yumoto insisted. His eyes were bright and his cheeks were very pink. He was beaming from ear to ear. "You aren't gonna believe this!"

"I guess we'd better go have a look," En concluded, "or he won't let us hear the end of it."

"This had better be good," said Kinshiro, getting stiffly to his feet.

Yumoto was positively bouncing with enthusiasm, overjoyed that his friends were getting ready to follow him. He made a gesture, and the room was momentarily filled with the strawberry scent of his magic. Arima blinked as his vision was momentarily filled with red sparkles.

When his sight had cleared, he found himself standing at the edge of a wide field. In the center of the field, three figures were apparently locked in combat. Arima blinked a few times, trying to make out what he was seeing. Two of the figures were clearly Aki and Haru, wielding their own unique weapons. After everything that had been going on lately, that was hardly a surprise. The person they were fighting, though...

"Demon's blood," Kinshiro swore. His eyes were very wide and round. "That's Chaos!"

And so it was. Clad all in black and dried-blood red, swinging his immense axe as if it were light as a feather, he attacked the brothers again and again. The two of them were doing a remarkably good job defending themselves. Aki stabbed at him with his polearm, only to be blocked by a sudden wall that hadn't been there a split-second ago. He hacked through it, only to find that Chaos was now behind him. The axe came whistling towards him, but Aki ducked, and Haru sprang at Chaos from the other direction with his immense shears spread wide. Chaos whipped around and made a gesture with one hand, and a geyser of something that smelled suspiciously like lemonade burst from the ground and flung Haru high in the air. Haru landed lightly a few feet away and dove instantly back into the fray.

"We have to help them," said Kinshiro, starting forward.

"Wait," said Atsushi, stretching a hand out to stop him. "Look closer. Look at his eyes."

Puzzled, Kinshiro stopped. Arima looked too. Yes, there _was_ something about the eyes. Arima had battled Chaos before, and he remembered only too well the look of those glowing red eyes, seething with the lust for destruction. These eyes... they were Gora's eyes, warm and friendly as ever, and just now glittering with the look of someone who is enjoying himself immensely.

"They're not fighting," Ryuu murmured wonderingly. "They're... playing."

And so they were. Aki ran at Chaos, preparing to stab at him, only to have the ground suddenly rear up under his feet and send him tumbling backwards. Haru tried to spear Chaos on the point of his shears, only to be caught by a flick of that menacing axe and flung through the air. He landed in a pile of pillows that had spontaneously manifested there. As soon as he had righted himself, the pillows dissolved into a mound of very confused crickets that all began trying to hop away. All three participants in this combat were grinning hugely, as though this were the most fun they had enjoyed in years. Arima relaxed and let his eye stray away from the contest, and noticed that there were several more people already observing the fun. Wombat and Dadacha were both perched on a nearby bit of fencing, enjoying the show, while Hashibiro stood near them preening his feathers with one eye turned towards the excitement.

"I don't understand," said Kinshiro, shaking his head. "This shouldn't be possible. How can he be Chaos and still be in control of himself?"

"He isn't," said Akoya, studying the performance with interest. "I mean, he's not Chaos - not quite. He's not quite Fate, either. He's somewhere in between. It's the two of them doing it. They're _balancing_ him."

"Isn't it fantastic?" Yumoto burbled. "Even I can't do that. All I could ever do was arrange it so Chaos never came out at all. These two can make him _safe_."

Kinshiro gave him a keen look. "You're sure about that?"

Yumoto nodded. "We've been testing all morning. He's fine. Most of the reason he was so wild the last time he showed up was because he'd been cooped up so long with nothing to do. Now he can come out and have fun whenever he wants, so even if there _is_ some kind of an accident and he gets out when he's not supposed to..."

"...he won't feel tempted to destroy the universe just because it's there," Atsushi finished, eyes bright. "You're right, that's _wonderful_ news."

"It really is," Akoya agreed.

Ryuu nodded. "It's just as I thought - the world needs a little Chaos in it, to shake things up a bit once in a while. I think this is going to be a very good thing, in the long run."

Kinshiro was shaking his head. "So if we had listened to these two - if we had accepted them right from the start, instead of my insisting that they be destroyed, we might have figured out their purpose sooner, and there need never have been a Chaos War." He pressed a hand to his face. "We've needed these two all along. I've been a fool."

Atsushi put his arm around Kinshiro's shoulders. "It wasn't your fault. How were you to know?"

"You were only doing what you thought was right," Arima assured him, "and you clearly weren't the only one who thought they didn't have a purpose. Apparently everyone did. Not even Gora knew what they were for up until now."

"Anyway, now we know," Yumoto assured him, "and things are going to be a lot better. I know Brother sure is a lot happier."

And clearly he was. Even as the audience watched, Aki had managed to tackle him from behind, and the two brothers working together were able to pin him to the ground, where they started tickling him. Gora laughed and tried ineffectually to shove them away.

"All right, all right, you win! I give up!" he shouted, still laughing.

The brothers obligingly backed off and offered their hands to help him stand.

"I think that's enough sparring for one day," he said, as he hauled himself to his feet.

His appearance went through a series of rapid changes, as his clothing went first from black and maroon to white and crimson, and then to the everyday homespun garb he normally affected when he was playing at being human. Seeing that the fighting was over, the rest of the group picked their way closer. The field was in rather odd shape after having Chaos unleashed on it, and they had to proceed carefully to avoid falling in a puddle of molasses or stepping on a random dead fish.

"How are you feeling?" Yumoto asked, as he drew within speaking distance.

Gora grinned and beat his chest with a fist. "Like a new man. I haven't felt so good in years."

"It's nice to see you three getting along so well," said Ryuu with a knowing grin.

"Having them around has done us all a world of good," Gora agreed. He flashed a fond smile at the twins, who positively glowed at the praise.

Yumoto nodded. "It's nice, having new friends around. Even the squirrel gets along with everybody."

Arima glanced over at the fence, where the demon in question was sitting with the two holy beasts. He had stalked and dispatched several of the crickets that had been created during the fight, and was now happily devouring them. Hashibiro took a few ponderous steps nearer for a better look, and Dadacha looked the long distance up at him. He held up a dead bug.

"Cricket?" he offered.

"I don't mind if I do," said Hashibiro.

Dadacha tossed the cricket into the air, and Hashibiro snapped it up with a clack of his immense beak. He chewed thoughtfully.

"Not bad," he decided, "but on the whole, I prefer fish."

Dadacha shrugged. "More for me!"

Arima smiled. "Yes, it seems everyone is getting on swimmingly."

"He gives good cuddles, too," said Yumoto with smug approval. "He's so _soft_."

Kinshiro had worked his way up to the front of the group. Now he was standing in front of the twins, his expression rigid. The two of them eyed him warily, clearly prepared to fight or bolt if he turned dangerous. Instead, Kinshiro performed a stiff, formal bow.

"I'm afraid I owe you an apology, my lords," he said. "I was very wrong about you both. I'm sorry I ever believed you were worthless. The truth is, you fill a role in this universe that is of paramount importance, and you are both deserving of great respect. Please accept my most profound regrets at my behavior." He straightened and met their eyes gravely. "When the terms of your servitude are over, I hope you will both feel welcome in the Palace of the Gods. I promise, when the time comes, you will be received with highest honors."

There was a long, tense silence. Arima could tell that Kinshiro still hadn't forgiven them for turning him against his beloved and his best friend. He could also tell that the twins hadn't forgiven Kinshiro for calling for their execution and then stuffing them in a seal for hundreds of years. For a moment, it seemed like things could go either way.

It was Aki who returned the bow and replied, "Thank you very much. Your apology is accepted." He straightened up and added, "But your invitation isn't necessary. We're both very happy where we are."

That seemed to be the right answer. Kinshiro relaxed a fraction and nodded.

"I wish you both the best, then," he said. "You will come visit us, I hope?"

This was a politeness, and everyone knew it. Aki shrugged, and Haru said, "We might. But I expect we're going to be busy for quite some time."

They parted company with a few more polite nothings on both sides, and then Kinshiro retreated to the safety of his own friends.

"That was nice," said Atsushi, patting his husband affectionately. "Good for you."

"I was just doing what needed to be done," said Kinshiro. His gaze strayed back to the two sets of brothers, who were now amusing themselves by rehashing the details of their sparring match. "Are they really going to be all right here, do you think? Gora's not going to be too soft on them, is he?"

"Don't worry so much," said Arima. "You can trust me - they're all _exactly_ where they need to be."

* * *

Evening was the twins' favorite time of day, and today they were enjoying it more than ever. They sat on the roof of the Kurotama, back to back, one gazing out at the rising moon, the other at the setting sun. Neither of them spoke, but they didn't need to. Each knew how the other was feeling, and some emotions ran too deeply for words.

 _We have a purpose._

For so many centuries, they had believed there was no reason for them to exist. They had wondered, in their secret hearts, if perhaps it was true that the world would be better off without them. Now, at last, they knew exactly what they were for, and it was the most wonderful thing they could imagine. Their purpose was to stand beside Gora and to love and protect him forever. It was what they had always wanted to do, and now at last they knew how to do it.

They were still dwelling on this marvelous prospect when the air around them suddenly warmed, filling with the scents of fresh-cut wood and hot metal. Then Gora was there, standing neatly balanced on the spine of the roof.

"There you two are," he said. "I've been looking for you. What are you doing way up here?"

"Watching the sunset," said Haru.

"Did you need us for anything?" asked Aki hopefully.

"Sort of," he replied. "Actually I wanted to show you something."

The two of them clambered to their feet.

"Show us what?" Haru asked eagerly.

Gora grinned. "A surprise. Do you trust me?"

Both of them nodded. They would have trusted him with anything.

"Then take hold of my hands," he said, extending them to the twins, "and close your eyes and follow me. We're going to take a little walk."

Both of them shyly took the offered hands. They were good strong hands, warm and callused from hard work. They closed their eyes and waited.

"All right," said Gora. "Now... step forward."

They walked. They felt the roof beneath their feet vanish between step and step, and now they were walking across something else, something smooth and hard that felt like slabs of stone beneath their feet. The pleasant breeze and scents of forest around them vanished, leaving only still air and a chilly, damp smell. Gora continued leading them confidently, warning them when they were approaching rough terrain, balancing them when they stumbled.

"Keep your eyes closed," he said. "We're almost there."

Sure enough, a few seconds later, he stopped.

"All right," he said. "Now, brace yourselves."

With that, he took both their hands and placed them on... something. It was cool and hard, whatever it was, like crystal. Then, suddenly, it was not cool at all, but warm and seeming almost alive. The twins yelped and opened their eyes as they felt power flare all around them.

They were in a world of starlight. The two of them stood with their hands pressed against a silver-white crystal, a slender spire of stone that rose above them, branching out into myriad fractal twigs like a tree made of solid diamond. Though they could have sworn they'd been walking on stone, the ground was now covered with midnight-blue grass that twinkled with dew. On one edge of the horizon, a huge blue moon hung gleaming over a stand of sparkling diamond trees with sapphire leaves. In the other direction was a building made of graceful white stone - a house, perhaps, or perhaps a theater like the one Haru had admired not so very long ago - and beyond that, the edge of the setting sun tinted the sky with a warm rosy hue. Things that might have been birds sang a sleepy song in the trees, and from somewhere nearby came a sound of running water. A gentle breeze played over it all, carrying with it a sweet floral scent. Above them spread a sky full of brilliant stars, so like the ones in their long-lost egg that it made their throats go tight with the sense that somehow, after all these years, they had finally come _home_.

"What is this place?" asked Aki, turning in a slow circle as he tried to take it all in.

"It's _beautiful_ ," Haru whispered.

Gora was looking around with an expression of approval. "This looks good. I like it." He turned to smile at them. "This is your world. I'm afraid it's not very big, but I wanted to give you something, since you won't have rooms in the Palace any time soon."

"You gave us... a world?" Aki repeated, bewildered.

"Just a small one," Gora repeated. "It's attuned to you but not bound to you - you can leave it as long as you want, but it will always be here when you want it. I fixed it so that only you two and I can get in without your permission." His expression became mildly anxious. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it? A place just for the three of us?"

The two of them stared a moment, hardly able to believe what they were hearing. Then, in unison, they flung themselves at him, hugging him tightly, half laughing and half crying.

"Yes! Yes, it's perfect! It's better than we wanted."

Gora laughed in delight and relief. "Well, that's good. I'd hate to go through all this trouble for nothing." He pulled away from them just far enough that he could smile down at them. "So, how about showing me around?"

"We don't know our way around, either," Haru pointed out. "We just got here."

Gora laughed again. "Okay, then. Let's explore."

"Let's," Aki agreed, and Haru nodded.

And so, hand in hand, the three of them wandered off into a perfect starry world.


End file.
